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A MAN OF TO-DAY 


A Novel. 


BY 

HELEN MATHERS, 


AUTHOR OF *‘COMIN THRO THE RYE, “SAM S SWEETHEART, "MY LADY 

GREEN SLEEVES," ^C. 



“What will you have?" quoth God. 
“ Pay for it and take it." 



J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 

1894. 




Copyright, 1894, 

BY 

J. B. Lippincott Company. 


Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. 


THE MEMORY OF 


MY DEAR AND HONOURED 


FRIEND 


MORELL MACKENZIE. 



A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


CHAPTER I. 

She was as red as flower in May, 

Or snow that snoweth on winter’s day.” 

Everybody at Penroses was dressing for church — 
dressing too with that eye to effect which only the 
seventh day properly inspires in the female breast, and 
which originated undoubtedly in that of our innocent 
mother Eve. For you may be sure that when, on the day 
above mentioned, she had modishly arranged her de- 
cidedly summer raiment, an instinct even older than her- 
self made her look round for the ‘ ‘ other woman, ’ ’ to be 
crushed by her superior grace ; and that, however much 
Adam may have admired her, she felt him to be but a poor 
substitute for that intelligent, if unwilling, approval, only 
to be furnished by her own sex. Our wittiest actress 
roundly asserts that the Serpent was a dressmaker, for 
that if Eve had not eaten the apple, she would not have 
required clothes, and if women did not wear clothes, they 
would not have dressmakers’ bills; ergo the Serpent, 
otherwise the dressmaker, is solely to blame for women 
getting into debt. And indeed I think Eve came off 
uncommonly ill in that little business all round. How 
was she to know when she offered a nice, juicy fruit to a 
man, most certainly with a view to his enjoyment, that 
he would be sneak enough to turn round (when it dis- 
agreed with him) and say, ‘ ‘ She beguiled me, and I did 
eat”? Why did he not put up with the disagreeable 
results of eating it, and let it be supposed he had gathered 
it himself? Eve would have been quite justified in flatly 
contradicting the mean tell-tale, but then she would not 

1 * 5 


6 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


have been a woman if she had not taken all the blame on 
her own shoulders and let the man go free. Her descend- 
ants do it to this day — but they won’t to-morrow. And 
her conduct on that occasion is just one of those things 
that makes me proud of my own sex, just as Adam’s 
meanness is a smudge on the whole race of man. 

And so everybody save the Chief, from the Ancient 
Mariner down to Nan (who wrestled with an ugly bonnet 
and wept at the unbecomingness thereof), was making 
the best of the face on her or him ; and a sense of flurry 
that seemed yet to blend naturally with the peaceful 
church-bells reigned supreme through the house. 

The Whipper-Snapper had tried on all his own and 
Dinkie’s waistcoats in turn (with some regretful thoughts 
thrown to his father’s, which were too big), and he felt it 
a trial when, at a critical stage of his operations. Nan 
appeared, looking rather worse than usual, enquiring, 
piteously, “ Do I look so very bad. Snappy dear?” 

It is to be feared that poor Nan, who on six days of 
the week was more or less wicked, but on the seventh 
merely vain, got an affirmative reply, for it was a tragic 
face that she finally carried to the hall, where the Denison 
family was wont to assemble before starting for church, 
only to be greeted with, — 

‘ ‘ Good heavens, child ! where did you get that cocked- 
up hat? And where’s your mother?” added the Chief, 
with such acerbity that immediately all eyes were anx- 
iously turned to the staircase, but in vain. 

Mrs. Denison was always a little late ; it was one of 
those small luxuries, well within the latitude of a really 
good woman, that she comfortably allowed herself, though 
to Tom unpunctuality comprised all the sins of the Deca- 
logue ; and now he muttered something inaudible, snatched 
the hand of the youngest child present, and set out, the 
procession falling in decorously behind him. 

If he had made the town, his eldest daughter half filled 
the church, and Tom glanced round with a sardonic 
twist of the nose as he made his way to the square pew 
under the pulpit, round which was spread a distinctly 
male population, through which Easter sent a ripple of 
life as she passed. 

I suppose we are all born greedy, and when we see 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


1 


deeds done we would have liked to do and people we 
would have liked to be, we look at and enjoy them, as if 
the deeds were our very own and the people our very 
selves. 

Talk about the feast of reason and the flow of soul ; it 
is the feast of colour and the flowing line of beauty that 
men really worship and revel in. It is to please his own 
eyes that a man looks at a lovely thing, not to give 
pleasure to what he gazes on. The pleasure is for him- 
self, and he desires to share it with none, but will let time 
stand still and duty go to rack and ruin, while he satisfies 
that craving of his nature for the beautiful, which im- 
periously cries out for satisfaction, even at the cost of all 
he holds most dear. And God who gives colour to one 
flower, yet denying it sweetness, bestowing both lavishly 
on another, grants to some few fortunate women that 
which makes them joys to every soul who approaches 
them — and such an one was Easter. 

When Tom had quarrelled with his foot-stool, fallen 
foul of his book-mark, asked Nan in a fierce whisper 
what she was gaping at, and levelled a furious glance at 
his newly-arrived wife that fell harmless on her pink cr^pe 
bonnet (Maria was a woman whom church became), also 
let the tail of the sheet-lightning in his eye expend itself 
on the local grocer, who was peeping at the great man 
through his fingers, he felt better, and presently glanced 
complacently round, much as a Turk might on a seraglio 
that reflected credit upon his taste. 

Nan had snuggled close up to Easter with hat askew 
and eyes alight ; Dinkie and the Snapper in all their Sun- 
day bravery were divided by Melons, who had already de- 
tected certain stolen splendours in her favourite brother’s 
attire, the French and English governesses were divided 
by Bunkulorum, and round Mrs. Denison the little ones 
clustered thick. She would have liked to put weights 
on their soft golden heads and keep them as her own 
little loving children always, for all too well she knew 
how fast they grew up into selfish, cock-sure boys and 
girls, who knew everything their parents are not expected 
to understand ; but this also she did 7iot know, that the 
only thing that will bring them back with the hearts of 
little children to their mothers is to be alone among 


8 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


strangers, or in a strange land, and to lean back and find 
the arm and the love that has supported them withdrawn. 

Mrs. Denison would cheerfully have submitted to be 
cut into pieces for any one of her children ^ only she would 
have insisted on the larger pieces being for the benefit of 
the boys, while Tom preferred his girls, though he was 
angry with Easter just now, for he could count at least 
a dozen new popinjays round his pew. Bring up your 
child, and love and tend her through long years, and 
then when the first young man she fancies calls to her, 
and hey, presto ! away she goes, can you wonder that a 
father’s heart is made sore by such ingratitude? I don’t 
think a mother ever feels quite the same over such things 
— she usually keeps her daughter all her life. Frequently 
her son-in-law wishes she didn’t. 

Woman is an affectionate animal — she can’t live without 
something to look after — she has actually been known to 
love a man — ^when she has no children. And Maria put 
the children first — and Tom leagues after. Now this is 
wrong, because, though I admit that little children are 
far more interesting and lovable than any contradictious 
man can ever be, yet it is the law of Nature that the 
young life goes out into the world and forgets, and the 
old life stays at home and remembers. Therefore should 
husband and wife be friends, for they will be left alone 
face to face, mutually dependent on each other by the 
once noisy and crowded hearth at last. 

I fear it is a tradition in most families that the person 
who has to keep order is a bogie. The mother usually 
slides easily enough into the position of guardian angel 
to the ungrateful young brats (it is a position that nearly 
every woman fills with grace, and intense satisfaction to 
herself), and tacitly admits tyranny in the father where 
often there is no tyranny at all, but only an earnest desire 
for the children’s real welfare. All of which is obviously 
unfair to the head of the family, who usually works hard 
to keep them, while they completely overlook the com- 
forts he provides, in finding fault with his temper. A 
child flees naturally to a mother’s petticoat, if it be the 
merest rag even, but it very seldom takes shelter behind 
a man’s coat-tails, and never if the rag be handy. And 
for my part, I am sorry for the poor old dad, who seldom 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


9 


gets a chance of winning his children’s affection till they 
are grown up, and then it is sometimes too late, for the 
mother pulls the wires, and can set the child jumping 
away from or towards the father, just as she pleases. It 
is undoubtedly this feeling of injustice, of outraged affec- 
tion, that provokes many a father into severities of which 
he would not otherwise be guilty, and when he is con- 
stantly expected to explode, why, if you expect a man 
to do a thing, and let him see that you expect it, he 
usually gratifies you by doing it, and going one better 
than you thought him good for. 

And there is this misfortune, that ever the father can 
dive down into his own memory as a child and see in 
what lamentable fashion he failed to his parents, but the 
child does not know, and only crudely judges the parent 
by those acts which must sometimes be faultily human, 
and therefore from the child’s inflexible stand-point — 
inflexible because it can’t see the possibility of change 
— wrong in an elder. Any way, it came to pass that 
Tom Denison was regarded as something of a tyrant 
both at home and abroad, while it had been tersely said 
of him in the hunting-field, where he was conspicuously 
well known, that he was in the habit of kicking his men 
servants and kissing his maids, also that he owned the 
best horses, the finest cellar, and the handsomest daugh- 
ter in the county. 

And if the former impeachment were true, you may be 
quite sure that the men richly deserved it, and that the 
maids were of altogether uncommon good looks. On 
one occasion I know that he forgot himself, but not of 
set purpose; he fell indeed the victim of a delicious 
opportunity. It was at the Works one morning, when 
everything, from his family at home down to the pertest 
factory girl, had driven him wild, that it occurred to his 
foreman, a man well on in years and respectability, to 
stoop down and tie his shoe lace right in Mr. Denison’s 
path. The temptation was irresistible, the opportunity 
unique. Mr. Denison promptly, and with much good 
sense, kicked his servant soundly, thereby probably sav- 
ing himself from a fit of apoplexy, or worse. The old 
servant did not retaliate. He rose, and said, with deep 
feeling and great dignity, “Mr. Denison, sir, I’m 


lO 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


ashamed of ’ee, and I wouldn’t have thought it of ’ee,” 
and marched stiffly away. It did not occur to him that 
possibly Mr. Denison had not thought it of himself 
either. 

Jem Burghersh’s pew was under the reading-desk on 
the other side of the aisle, and across it the young man 
looked at Hugon, who, beside Easter, showed like a dim 
and sad silhouette of the past, as contrasted with a vivid, 
prismatic to-day. 

For a moment the tired blue eyes and the grey ones, 
so full of vigorous life and purpose, questioned each 
other. And it struck Jem then that there is no more 
pitiful, sorrowful sight than faded, young blue eyes. 
They were meant for love, and laughter, and sunshine, 
and they have found only tears and disillusion. Of the 
black and brown we expect work-a-day things, but the 
blue — when sunken and weary — touch us with an inex- 
plicable pain and pity. 

Jem thought, “Poor little woman!” as he looked 
away, which w'as not precisely the way in which anyone 
who really knew Hugon would describe her, and it might 
have surprised him to know the manner in which she 
was just then apostrophising him. 

“You are a good sort,” she said to herself; “just 
enough brains to keep you from being a fool, and just 
the man to be gentle to a woman, and take care of her 
— yes, and forgive her too, if needs were. To be sure, 
you have made the fatal mistake of going down on your 
knees at the beginning, and when you want to get up 
again probably Easter won’t let you. Yet there’s a 
curve about your moustache that flatly contradicts the 
^ gentleness of ^our manners. Odd that a man who 
should be at his very best when he is love-making is 
usually at his very worst, and arouses a woman’s 
strongest contempt when it is absolutely vital that he 
should compel her to look up to and own him master — 
as if he kept his very worst for her, his best for the 
world. Your masterful man is your indifferent lover — 
none the worse for the woman perhaps in the end — but 
if in love men were calm, self-reliant, holding their own 
as they do in crowds or when together ; instead of which, 
when really and profoundly in love, ’ ’ she paused, and a 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


II 


burning memory whitened her cheeks, ‘‘they are like 
children who beg, and cry, and pray for something to 
please — us ? No, themselves. When they master their 
selfish cries and prayers, when they have learned to go 
hungry, they master us. Still, it is the mHier of the 
Briton to be steadfast, of the Russian to be distinguished 
— and dangerous. I wonder what our friend is doing 
now? If he has courage, or is sufficiently in love, he 
will follow her here ; I’m sure of the courage, but I 
doubt the love. ’ ’ 

Nan had forgotten her unbecoming bonnet, and because 
incongruous ideas always came into her head, she was 
wondering why there should be so many people walking 
and sitting about the world, and so few lying flat in 
graveyards ? And people take so much more room lying 
down than standing upright, with just enough room in 
great cities for feet to %ht on, and people have gone on 
being born, and dying, for thousands and thousands of 
years, yet the churchyards are so few that they are 
scarcely to be seen as specks on Nature’s broad breast, 
and the living give us neither elbow space nor breathing 
room. Where do they hide themselves away, the poor 
tired-out dead — do their bodies indeed vanish even as 
rapidly as our memories of them ? 

And then Nan stopped thinking, to look, as everyone 
else was looking, at a suddenly opening door beneath the 
organ loft, through which, in a blinding burst of sunshine, 
came a young man, who advanced fcldly up the aisle, 
his eyes searching the congregation on either side of him, 
until he found what he wanted, when he coolly turned in 
at the nearest pew, taking the only vacant seat — which 
happened to be next to Daddy Gardner — that was there. 

Mr. Denison looked sharply at his daughter, but she 
lifted the little black fan she carried in her hand, and hid 
her face completely. This stranger might be staying in 
the neighbourhood — and it was a common enough thing 
for young men to journey miles over and back just to 
see Miss Denison at church, but this was by no means a 
common young man, and by way of passing on his dis- 
comfort Tom smartly touched the foot of Nan, who was 
leaning forward, all her soul in her eyes, and eager interest 
stamped upon her every feature. 


12 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


Les beaux esprits se rencontrent,^^ and it was at her 
that the stranger was looking — not at Easter — caught by 
the absolute sincerity and truth of the little ugly face 
under its ugly hat, for this man rated sincerity high above 
every other precious equality on earth, above even loyalty. 

Excuse me,” said Daddy, in a politely infuriated 
whisper, “but you are sitting on my hat.” 

It was only the brim, but the new-comer smiled slightly 
as he removed himself, and took in all the noble army 
of Easter’s lovers, before he looked across at Easter’s 
now uncovered face, carelessly, keenly; but there are 
men’s looks — and looks. 

Jem’s glance revealed Easter to herself in a misty halo 
of divinity, Basil Strokoff’s stripped her clean to her 
bones — which were ugly and unbecoming, and she hated 
him for doing it. And it was delightful to her to feel 
that she could be angry — not flurried, not glad, but simply 
angry. Indeed, after that first heart-leap which greeted 
his unexpected appearance, Easter sat tight, and behaved 
as if no such person as Basil were present, whereby Tom 
was partly deceived, but not quite. 

Nan felt drawn to the man in spite of herself, and 
fascinated, though she did not in the least know why. 
He was different from anything she had ever seen before 
in her life ; the glance of his eyes went through her, and 
when he looked at Easter the child thrilled as if it were 
herself he loved, and who must and did love him, for of 
course he had come here after Easter. 

The villagers looked at him hard, rested their hands 
on their knees, and breathed harder still. He wore a 
coat, waistcoat, tie, and so on, just like other men. In 
what, then, did he or his clothes differ from many other 
young men present ? Even these yokels recognised the 
power, though they knew not the name, of Style — that 
quality which will make one man well-dressed in a rag, 
while without it another is mean in cloth of gold. As to 
what the rural beaux thought of him — well, they thought 
principally of their tailors, and reviled them, all except 
Jem, who was not wholly unacquainted with Poole. 

And looking at Easter, Basil acknowledged that her 
clothes too were all right — and a woman’s clothes mean 
so much more than herself ; an ill-dressed head, a veil 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


13 


awi^-, will make her appear a very derelict of fate, while 
attired d. quatre ^pingleSy her heart may be broken and 
ruin have overtaken her — but no one will know, or 
believe it. Thus Basil appreciated the fitness of the 
gauzy frock and hat that matched Easter’s hair and eyes, 
a sable background against which her skin showed up 
like the white and rose of azaleas, satiny fine, vividly 
pure as they — nay, purer, for what shall compare with 
the infinite possibilities of beautiful young blood ? And 
best of all was the eager look that only a young face ever 
wears, with the light of the rising sun upon it, not that 
over which the day (however good) has passed. 

Hugon had looked at him openly, as at a face that she 
knew ; her glance indeed was almost equivalent to a bow, 
and expressly intended for Tom’s observation. He had 
been delighted with Hugon hitherto, but now his eye 
suggested that she had come to Penroses without cre- 
dentials, and that he had never once heard her speak of 
her father and mother. She nodded to him slightly as 
one who says, ‘ ‘ Bye-and-bye ;’ ’ then plunged into her 
prayer-book with its scarlet cross, and shut her senses to 
the trembling of Easter’s knees on the hassock that 
touched her own. 

Perhaps the new-comer did not fall in so readily with 
the downsittings and uprisings of his neighbours as he 
might have done. Twenty years had been bridged in a 
moment’s space — it was just so long since he had been in 
a country church, yet, if he had been set here deaf and 
blindfold, the atmosphere must have told him what day 
it was, and among what manner of people he found 
himself. 

He listened intently to the singing of old hymns that 
he remembered, for though his father was a Russian, he 
had been born and brought up in England, and as a 
child had sometimes accompanied his English mother to 
church. 

“ O ! Paradise ! O ! Paradise, the world is growing 
old,” sang the lusty young voices and the quivering old 
ones ; but it is no such thing, the world is as young as 
ever, it is only we who grow old and stale, and cease 
from enjoyment, for, as if in defiance of such teaching, 
through the door he had opened and that no one else had 


14 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


shut, one could see the slanting tombstones and hear the 
rooks calling sleepily to each other in the oak-trees over- 
head, while little vagrant airs suggesting new-mown grass 
and running water stole to and fro among the warm, 
half-sleeping elders of the congregation, and everywhere 
the quiver of young restless life made itself felt ; that 
youth to which rest means stagnation, and sleep is one of 
the useless conditions, not joys of existence. 

When the sermon began, Basil glanced round the church. 
The square pews showed Conservatism, for as a Radical 
is known by the evilness of his hat, and the misdirected 
energy of his manners, so is the true Conservative recog- 
nised by the comfort, not to say elegance of his surround- 
ings, and it did not take Basil Strokoff long to discover 
that the principal person present (in the town’s estima- 
tion) was Mr. Denison, and that half the prosperity there 
to-day flowed directly from him, since only a man who 
owned half the town could aflbrd to unbutton his waist- 
coat, or with closed eyes make wry faces when the lady- 
like Vicar made outrageous demands on the common 
sense, not to say purses of his congregation. 

Nothing escaped this young man, who took in every 
phase of Rokehorne life as here represented. He labelled 
correctly enough the doctor, lawyer, tradesman, poor 
man, and black sheep penitent o’ Sundays, and the rest ; 
while the existence that Easter must necessarily live in 
such a place moved symmetrically before him in a pano- 
rama which contained among other less useful figures the 
dominant one of Jem Burghersh. True, his back was to 
that young man — still, he had observed him, and even 
found time to note a young woman heavily swathed in 
crape, of whom he thought, “She looks like a Suttee, 
and will marry again to-morrow, if she gets a chance.” 
^ The sermon was a missionary one. Will anything ever 
teach us not to interfere with other folks’ religions, older 
^ by uncounted thousands of years than our own ? It is as 
' unjustifiable as meddling with another person’s pockets, 
and upon my word, when the missionaries get eaten, I 
say, “Serve them right.” And I always thought that the 
pith of the whole expedition, ay, and the pathos of it, too, 
lay in that one solitary little Bible which I once saw ex- 
hibited as the sole relic of Mungo Park’ s expedition. The 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 15 

savages could not eat that — no, nor its spirit, which is in- 
destructible. 

And now the sermon had droned itself to a close, and 
by way of relief, during the collection, the congregation 
sang with a will. Basil knew the tune, which was cheer- 
ful, though with none of the chirrupy, lirrupy song and 
prayer combined peculiar to the Salvation Army, and 
which seems at one and the same time to satisfy the mirth- 
ful desires of human nature, while evincing a very lively 
fear of God. It is not everybody who can set his piety 
to a dance tune, but those who can and do are undoubt- 
edly happy and wise. 

Gradually a strange feeling stole over Basil that possi- 
bly our greatest joys are those of reminiscence — of things 
that, lying a long, long way back in our memories, steal 
upon us softly, like old friends sure of a welcome, . . . 
but when the collecting plate was brought him, he shook 
his head in stern negative, at the same moment as on the 
opposite side of the aisle, Mr. Denison, likewise invited, 
angrily shook his. Perhaps each saw the action of the 
other, and their mutual hatred of humbug established a 
point (P appui between them, and made many impossible 
things possible, afterwards. 

The two opposite pew-doors flew open simultaneously, 
and Basil Strokoff found himself close to Hugon (who 
alone of all those present he had been unable to clas- 
sify), and she bowed gravely and formally to the young 
man, to Basil’s immense surprise. Mr. Denison snatched 
Easter’s hand and hustled her away, while the French 
governess, moving abreast of the Russian, said, in a low 
voice, — 

“You are coming to call ? When ?’^ 

He shook his head. 

‘ ‘ Then why are you here ?’ ’ 

He shrugged his shoulders. 

“I have friends at Fitzwalters,’^ he said. “I took 
this on my road. There is some good gudgeon-fishing 
here, I am told.” 

Their eyes met, and Hugon smiled. He remained 
grave. Then the crowd pushed them divergent ways — 
they melted rather than parted into the surrounding 
throng. 


i6 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


Hugon hurried, and overtook Mr. Denison outside the 
church door. He was fuming, and muttering something 
about “fellows,” when she joined him. 

“I stopped to speak to Mr. Strokoff, an old friend,” 
she said, with a certain hard calmness. ‘ ‘ He may call 
upon me, I suppose ?’ ’ 

“What is he doing here?” snapped Mr. Denison. 

‘ ‘ He has friends at Fitzwalters ’ ’ 

“And a pretty set they are over there,” said Mr. 
Denison, shooting a withering glance at Easter, but her 
face told no tales. 

“ Pray, miss,” he said, “do you know him too ?” 

“ I never spoke to him in my life, father,” said Easter, 
truly enough, but with a haste for which fear was mainly 
responsible. 

Just behind, Mrs. Denison might be heard remarking 
with real enjoyment on the deliciousness of the air, and 
it was a remarkable fact that whenever his wife most 
acutely felt the beauties of nature, it was invariably at a 
moment when Tom’s natural irascibility was increased by 
business, or family, or personal worries. 

“Confound the air !” cried Tom, as he shot ahead, 
and Hugon, left face to face with Easter, smiled. 

“ It was unavoidable. I saved a scandal by seeming 
to recognise him, for he gave you away by the manner 
in which he walked up the aisle and sat down opposite 
you. And Mr. Denison strikes me as a person who could 
make himself— unpleasant on occasion. ’ ’ 

“I don’t understand you,” said Easter, indignantly; 
“ at Fairmile you moved heaven and earth to keep Basil 
Strokoff and me apart, and now you are throwing me at 
his head — ^and I won’t be thrown. If he does call, I 
shall be out.” 

“Calm yourself. He is on his way to Fitzwalters. 
He is merely paying you — a morning call.” 

‘ ‘ How dare he ?’ ’ cried Easter, clenching her slender 
hand, with those tears in her eyes that mean temper in 
the young. “ O ! if he were really in love with me, F d 
teach him a lesson he’d never forget !’* 

Hugon laughed as they turned in at Penroses. 

“ He has been teaching women lessons all his life,” she 
said in Easter’s ear, as they went up the wide, shallow 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


17 


stairs, “and I don’t believe the woman is born who will 
ever teach him — anything new. But ‘buck up,’ as 
Dinkie says — in these days of nervous, lady-like young 
men, and manly women, you may congratulate yourself 
on attracting, if but for a moment, two such real mascu- 
line personalities as Jem Burghersh and Basil Strokoff. 
Though of course it’s the page upside down that we 
all want to read, and we pass the blackboard with the 
writing chalked up — nose in the air — still, the black- 
board’s safest.’’ 

“And dull. I’m tired of blackboards,’’ said Easter 
with decision, as she tossed her hat with its nodding 
black plumes on her bed. 


CHAPTER II. 

“ Of pleasures those which occur most rarely give the greatest 
delight. ’ ’ — Epictetus. 

It was so early that only the birds were abroad, patter- 
ing with light feet on the silvered sheet of lawn that lay 
before Penroses, for the sun had not yet dispersed the 
dew, and is not four o’clock of a deepest summer morn- 
ing the stillest, the divinest, the most exquisite hour out 
of all the twenty-four that a lordly August day and night 
may think fit to squander on us ? 

Nature does not awaken in the same fashion as her ^ 
last, and most unhappily made creation, man — ^with a 
stretch, a groan, and usually a longing to relapse again 
into the nothingness of slumber, and so evade the respon- 
sibilities of waking life. She appears fresh, smiling, trim 
— all her forces in admirable working order, and has 
always at least an hour or so to herself, in which to enjoy 
her own company, before that biped, misnamed lord of 
all, struts upon the scene. 

It is then that like a queen apart she reigns in her own 
beauty, and will scarcely deign to share it with you, even 
if you rise betimes to catch her, but is always a little far- 


i8 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


off and chilly in her greeting, making you feel how 
insignificant you are, and how great she is — mysterious, 
too, as if still touched with the secrets and the silence of 
the night. 

Her flowers will not greet you with a warm breath of 
voluptuous sweetness as you pass them by — cold in their 
breasts will lie the dew, and they will yield but a rarefied, 
clean fragrance as you lay them to your lips, asking if 
indeed but yesterday they were warmed through and 
through by a scorching mid-day sun? Austerely as 
strangers they look you in the face, as if marvelling that 
you linger near, and your hands hesitate to pluck them ; 
for vaguely you feel that your presence is an intrusion, 
and that nature was holier and more beautiful without you, 

“ For beast and bird have seen and heard 
That which man knoweth not.” 


Wherefore put thy shoes from off thy feet if thou 
wouldst enter in with a chance of welcome from her, or 
read her intimate heart ; forget that thou art human, and 
remember only that the great Unknown, who breathed 
into life all this loveliness about thee, made thee also, 
and that dust indeed thou mayest proudly be, if all this 
earthly beauty be fashioned out of dust, calling to us in 
kinship with a thousand voices to which a thousand 
chords in us respond, and reminding us that when we 
crumble to earth again, we shall live again as a part of 
the glory of the universe. 

“There lives and breathes 
A soul in all things, 

And that soul is God.” 

And what better can we ask than to live on among 
what we know — to spring in the spear of grass, to breathe 
in the flower, to steal out into the sunshine in all the ex- 
ultant freshness of the young leaf, and to throb and tingle 
with life, warm in the mother breast from which we 
sprai^ ? “ O ! not for us, ’ ’ we cty, ‘ ‘ to waken in some 

far-off alien place, among chilly joys that we may not 
taste with human lips, understand with human hearts, 
where we may not even have the human creatures near 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


19 


US who made our heaven upon earth, for is it not written 
that there all human ties are broken ?’ ’ 

Moreover, if to dust we come, then for us there can be 
no lasting stain of sin, for the impersonality of nature must 
be apparent even to the lightest observer. The foulest 
crime, the utmost human corruption, leaves no mark on 
our Earth-mother’s stainless perfection ; rather her leaves 
fall over, and hide it, the south wind scatters even its 
memory, and straightway Nature has done with, has for- 
given, and forgotten it. Man may grow old and vile, 
but the youth of the earth is the same yesterday, now, and 
for ever, and makes you know the imperishability of God. 

Nothing was lost on Hugon as she moved, not a tint of 
the sky, or sharp touch of aigre-doux in the air, or the 
feel and the sparkle of the crisp dew beneath her feet ; 
she even seemed to hear the white trumpet flowers, and 
their blue-eyed sisters shouting their welcome to the 
dawn, yet at the bottom of all she was intensely conscious 
of that wretched EgOy which dwarfed the very vault of 
heaven and the floor of earth to a puddle just large 
enough to hold her own frightful reflection. 

‘ ‘ What does it matter ?’ ’ she said to herself, scornfully, 
and looking up to the pale sky, rarefied as if a mighty 
pure breath had hurried before the sun, and winnowed 
all the heavens against his coming, sweeping imperiously 
away the old day and the night, to make room for the 
new. ‘ ‘ Why am I not asleep, too, like those animals in 
the house behind me ? They were born asleep — they will 
live and die asleep ; there is only one waking soul among 
them, the red-headed child, and when they die, they will 
only continue their present existence of rust, rust, rust. 
Is there not time enough to sleep when we die ? Let us 
work while we have the light. ... ‘In the darkness no 
man can work’ — what does that mean but death — not 
sleep, but death ?’ ’ 

She stopped thinking to listen to the zee-zee of the 
tit-lark, shrilly clear among other reed-like notes, fine 
and sweet as are all bird voices above human utterances. 
What do they not know, these tiny creatures with death- 
less spirits that are never to be tamed or bought of men ? 
They tell us of what we know not, and make us know 
them also ... of how the dawn comes up, of what 


20 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


the song means in running water, of the source of sun- 
shine, and the mystery of the fragrance of turf and blos- 
som ? of what the west wind rustling through long grass 
breathes in whispers, they being indeed God’s interpreters 
between Him and us. 

A horse was resting his nose on the top of the gate 
leading into the orchard, and looking at the garden as if 
thoroughly enjoying himself, till he saw, and shied away 
from her as an intruder. 

“You are awake of course,” said Hugon, who thor- 
oughly knew and hated human nature, but loved animals, 
thus obeying a natural law. “You live a temperate, 
clean, hard-working existence, and don’t know the 
meaning of self-indulgence, yet when one man wants to 
say the most degrading thing possible of another, he 
calls him a beast. A beast ? What is it ? What harm 
is there in one ? It has healthy instincts, a healthy body, 
and when it dies, we can eat it without fear. Who could 
eat one of us ? An animal indeed ! One healthy beast 
is worth a thousand diseased humans. A man finds it 
too much trouble to get out of his chair to serve you — 
a dog, comfortably couched, leaps up if you do but look 
at him — it is all willing service, willing heart, and limbs, 
and eyes — where will you find a man so patient, so docile, 
so affectionate, so absolutely devoted to you as your dog ? 
I envy you, oh beasts, and would be one of you — for we 
should do no wrong if we did not know it to be wrong, 
and — you have the sweet of slumber, while of the curse 
of memory you are blessedly free. You go on producing 
beautiful, healthy offspring, while man alone is the author 
of those miserable beings, that the false conditions of life, 
and mental trouble, cause unhappy woman to briner 
forth.” 

The current of her thoughts changed. 

“I wonder what you mean,” she said, looking across 
to the belt of trees behind which, at the ‘ ‘ Royal George,” 
Basil Strokoff was presumably sleeping. “You are a 
man, and you take what you like, and when you like, 
and how you like — you don’t live the one phase of life a 
woman does — ^with her heart ; you live with heart, and 
brain, and body— in a word, with the whole physical and 
spiritual man. O ! yes, you live — and no good woman 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


21 


ever lives. It is a sip here, a snippet there, a taste given 
you for hunger, an ache developed where there was no 
ache before, but it is not the whole ripe, rich fruit, to be 
enjoyed through and through, that you take so unthank- 
fully — you must be a woman first if you want to appre- 
ciate being a man.” 

She pushed open the gate, and crossed the stubble that 
the dew touched so much less beautifully than the smooth 
turf of the garden, and came presently to the long apple- 
tree colonnade, that ran parallel with the ‘ ‘ George’ ’ 
cabbage garden and strawberry beds. Early as the hour 
was, Hugon perceived a man’s figure on the other side, 
and she smiled as he turned towards her. Across the 
ditch their eyes met, and he glanced questioningly at her 
hand, as if he expected it to hold a billet-doux. 

“ Won’t you come over?” she said. 

He leaped the ditch at a place made convenient by 
Easter’s “ boys,” and strolled beside her. 

“I love these morning hours,” she said. “Nature 
with her eyes wide open — man with his fast shut.” 

“ The only thing is,” he said, languidly, “ that it is apt 
to make one a Pharisee — to extol oneself at the expense 
of one’s neighbours — in itself a very bad exercise for any- 
body. And who knows but that the very persons whose 
slumbers we despise may not later in the day do some- 
thing infinitely better than our best thoughts have been, 
however early we got up to think them ? By-the-way,” 
he added, ‘ ‘ I like that little girl I saw in church yester- 
day — I don’t know her name.” 

“So you noticed Nan,” said Hugon, “which is un- 
usual. Miss Easter is the sweet-briar of the family ; do 
you know that if you put a twig of it among a bunch of 
flowers, it kills all the rest ?’ ’ 

“Why did she not answer my letters?” enquired the 
young man, as if the subject interested him very little. 

“And if she had, probably you would not be here,” 
said Hugon. 

He laughed, and his laugh was exhilarating. It was 
impossible not to observe how delightfully the morning 
suited him, and he the morning. 

“Can one in all the place get away from Penroses?” 
he said; “ it seems to me that the whole town has been 


22 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


sacrified to Mr. Denison’s gardens, and hot-houses, and 
graperies, and orchards, and meadows. He is in trade, 
is he not?” 

“Yes. Do you know what trade means? It means 
morals, taste, education, health, travel, independence — 
everything in short that makes life worth living, instead 
of merely lingering. Only one ought to begin poor, or 
one does not get the best value for one’s money.” 

“ Everyone,” said Basil, “should be allowed two lives 
here below— one in which to learn how to enjoy himself, 
and the other in which to enjoy it.” 

“A man might,” said Hugon, “but a woman, never. 
She would take her every thought and memory of the 
one life into the other, and spoil it. A man keeps his 
memories in his cigarette case — a woman carries hers 
about with her in trunks, and never loses them. I don’t 
think a man has enough to fill a trunk.” 

‘ ‘ Is not that the little girl I liked so much ?’ ’ 

Hugon turned. It was Nan, sure enough, who had 
been abroad under the hedgerows, and far afield for 
hours, and now came timidly over the grass laden with 
wild flowers, and stockings down at heel, looking, if 
possible, more disreputable than ever. 

Basil’s manner changed altogether as he went to meet 
her, seeing only the eager welcome in the child’s eyes as 
she hastened towards him. 

“How do you do?” said Nan politely, for, as Dinkie 
said, she could be extremely well-behaved on occasion 
(only the occasion rarely lasted very long). “Shall I 
make you a nosegay ?’ ’ 

And while she made it, Basil and she talked together, 
and Hugon, quite out of it, and murmuring something 
about wet feet, moved away. 

They were very simple things of which the man and 
child talked, as they crossed the stubble together. Yet 
before they parted. Nan had timidly confided to him that 
she meant to write a great book some day, so that her 
family might be proud, and not ashamed of her. 

“Then do your work now, while you are young, 
child,” he said, sadly. “Never believe anyone who tells 
you that the fruit of experience is best. Do it while you 
are enthusiastic— full of hopes and ideals, with unbroken 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


23 


health, and heart, and unflagging spirits — it will be worth 
reading then, and brighten many a soul. God knows 
we’ve got enough wretches to preach the gospel of 
despair to us already,” — and he thrust further out of 
sight the volume of Pouschkine that peeped from his 
pocket. 

But as they neared the house by way of the stables, 
lively fears of her father obtruded themselves on Nan’s 
enjoyment, and presently she stopped short, and looked 
at Basil very earnestly. 

“You mustn’t come any further,” she said; “if the 
Chief sees you, he’ll kick you.” 

“ I shall sit down,” said Basil. 

“You see, it’s on account of Easter,” said Nan. 
“ Everybody is in love with her ! Are you ?” 

“Well, I’m blowed,” cut in Dinkie’s voice, in a fierce 
aside from the adjacent wash-house window ; ** if you' re 
l^^oing to be gooseberry-in-chief, please say so, and 

“I shall come and call this afternoon,” said Basil; 
“mind you look out for me, child. Good-bye.” 


CHAPTER III. 

What we ought not to do we should not even think of doing.” — 
Epictetus. 

Mr. Denison’s acquaintance with his neighbours was 
of the most superficial character, while his hospitality was 
not unlike that of the Tezzanese whose religion enjoins 
them to practise hospitality, and who therefore always 
eat with shui doors. Tom abhorred provincial society, 
and lived to please himself — and occasionally other peo- 
ple. If the county did not want him, he most assuredly 
did not want the county, and kept his independence in a 
way that no man trained to polite fiction in conversation 
can. He was fond of recording how, when, on one occa- 
sion, Maria mentioned to a caller “The Mill on the 
Floss” as her favourite work, and George Eliot as her 


24 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


favourite author, she was met by the crushing rejoinder, 

“ Oh ! she was Nobody, she was a Unitarian.^ ^ 

And so it came to pass that when Basil stormed the 
front door at Penroses, seldom used save on Sundays, he 
was kept waiting so long, that had he not been a resolute 
man he would probably have turned round and driven 
off to Fitzwalters ; but when at last Sweet William ad- 
mitted him to one of the many satisfactory rooms at Pen- 
roses, he immediately discovered that Mr. Denison was 
a man of taste who, while never setting himself up to be 
a judge, yet possessed the quality of selection to an ex- 
traordinary degree, so that there was nothing in his 
house (saving and excepting the room known as the Pig- 
sty) that anyone could have possibly improved upon, or 
wished otherwise. 

Pictures were meant to hang up, and china to sit down, 
he said, so he made his walls rich with that splendour of 
colouring which good pictures alone can give, and kept 
the best china in pantry cupboards, so that it was only by 
accident in later years that the children discovered they 
had always eaten their gooseberry-fool out of Crown 
Derby cups without handles, and smashed a few dozen in 
the eating. 

Basil passed a quarter of an hour very comfortably with 
the pictures, then went to the window and looked out, 
thinking that one might pass his existence pleasantly 
enough at Penroses, if one had never chanced to live the 
life of the town. For the most part healthy people do 
not want, and do not miss, excitement, which is really 
only a disease of the nerves, and with good health, suf- 
ficient occupation, and surrounded by those we love, any 
vague yearning for change may be quickly stifled, but 
once bitten by that insane rage for one’s species that herds 
men and women together in masses till the air is thick 
with their struggling breath, so that they come to prey 
like wild beasts on one another, you can never go back 
to the still calm joys that once contented you, and may 
thank God if you do not become fevered with that desire, 
death ^ to all honesty of thought, and ^ood work, of out- 
stripping, not excelling, your forbears in the race for life. 

Basil waited, but nobody came — not even Nan, whom 
he especially wished to see. He had merely asked for 


A MAN OF TODAY. 25 

the ladies. The open window beckoned him, and he 
stepped out. 

To the right of the house, an ivy-covered wall, masked 
by rhododendrons, shut off a variety of out-houses and 
stables that he already knew, and, attracted by a distant 
sound of voices, Basil passed through a little door in 
it, emerging on a cobble-stoned enclosure which led in 
turn to a courtyard warm with the smell of horses, and 
lively with the barking of dogs, and inconsequent cackle 
of cocks and hens. 

High above these, from what looked like a disused 
coachman’s house, issued William’s meek voice in 
accents of entreaty, to which a fresh, enjoying young 
female soprano lifted itself in pert reply. 

“I hear. It’s the 'Roosian gent.’ Why don’t you 
go and tell your missus ?’ ’ 

“Missus is in the kitchen garden, miss, with cook,’’ 
said William, “seeing about the pickles, and can’t 
come,’’ — ^which was a lie, for, with the usual sympathy 
of the lower classes for a love affair, he had been search- 
ing for Easter only. — “You’ll excuse me, miss, but I 
think he’s come to 

“Then say I’ve gone out for the day,’’ said Easter. 

“I understood him, miss, to ask me to fetch you,’’ 
said William, mendaciously, mindful of future tips, for 
Basil’s elegance had sunk deep into his soul. 

“Then tell him I’m cleaning out the fowl-house, and 
can’t be disturbed. So I am — ain’t I, Daddy?’’ 

“Of course, and I’m helping you,’’ said a masculine 
voice, with great authority. 

“And so am I,’’ struck in another, “only don’t tell 
him that — the beggar might want to come out and help, 
you know.’’ 

“Then say I’m sitting in the ice-house, William, try- 
ing to get cool. Just fancy, Reggy, someone in the 
street put a boiler up, and when the Chief went to look 
for his ice the other day there was — nothing ! He simply 
danced, and his language was — like the boiler. Where’s 
my preserved citron? Now, then. Daddy, don’t you 
frighten that hen. When those eggs are chickens, 
they’re mine, and I’m going to sell ’em. I want a new 
frock. William ! Isn’t that idiot gone f ’ 

B 3 


26 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


“Yes, miss,” said a voice faintly. And then there 
was a sort of scuffle below stairs, and a sound of retreat- 
ing footsteps across the gravel. 

‘ ‘ Boys, ’ ’ said Easter, in muffled tones that suggested 
her mouth was full, ‘ ‘ which hen do you bet gets her chicks 
out first, the Cochin China or the black Hamburg ?’ ’ 

“It’s like his infernal cheek,” growled Daddy Gard- 
ner, “poking his nose in at Penroses ; we don’t want 
any blooming Nihilists here. And I think, Miss Easter,” 
he added, insinuatingly, ‘ ‘ you mentioned that you had 
never spoken to him in your life before ?’ ’ 

“ I never have,” said Easter, in the tone that signifies 
an unwilling blush. 

“And, of course, you don’t want to,” said Daddy, 
with youthful indiscretion. “Haven’t you got usf — 
and what do you want more ?’ ’ 

“ Y-e-s.” 

Easter’s voice sounded flat; for the time, at least, all 
the vim seemed to have gone out of her. She put up 
her hands to loosen the white silk handkerchief tied 
round her head, and at the same moment a quick, 
decided step sounded on the stair. 

‘ ‘ The Chief !’ ’ she exclaimed, turning pale ; ‘ ‘ hide, 
boys, hide !’ ’ 

The two broad-shouldered young men looked compre- 
hensively and wildly around them. 

“ The cupboard won’t hold one of us, much less two,” 
whispered Daddy, breathlessly ; “ it was an awfully tight 
fit last year ’ ’ 

“It isn’t the Chief,” said Easter, listening intently; 
“ it’s a new step” — then (stiffening at a dreadful thought) 
“ I do believe it is ’ ’ 

She darted into the adjacent cupboard, and drew the 
dusty door close, just as Basil appeared on the stairway, 
looking as entirely at his ease as he always managed 
to do, whether in a palace or a hovel, and glancing en- 
quiringly at the two flurried and angry young men. In 
his hand he held a hat that had been crushed into a silk 
accordion by a spiteful blow that the ceiling had come 
down to hit him on the stairs, but he appeared quite 
unconscious of the disaster as 

‘ ‘ Miss Denison ?’ ’ he said, gravely. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


27 


“You have the advantage of us, sir,” said Reggy, with 
extreme bucolic hauteur, “this is the hen-house, and 
Miss Denison, as you see, is ” 

At that moment came from the cupboard a small, dis- 
tinctly feminine sneeze. Feminine, because it suggested 
anger, laughter, timorousness, defiance — all combined in 
a way quite impossible to be expressed by any male organ, 
and while the young men turned scarlet, Basil smiled. 

“ I never heard a hen sneeze quite like that before,” he 
said, and made a step forward as if to investigate such a 
natural curiosity, but Daddy, gobbling like a turkey-cock, 
threw himself between. 

‘ ‘ Sir, ’ ’ he said, ‘ ‘ I thought a gentleman never intruded 
on the privacy of a lady — a hen, sir, I mean — and if 
you’ll come downstairs, we will look for Miss Denison, 
and let her know you are here.” 

“Certainly,” said Basil, who had not the slightest 
intention of pressing the point, when at that moment the 
cupboard door groaned, opened, and Miss Easter Denison 
walked lightly and unconcernedly out. 

That he had never really seen her before, or had for- 
gotten her, that was Basil’s first impression as she faced 
him, laughing, the ebon silk of her hair showing under 
the white, twisted kerchief, the rose-tints of her dimpled 
cheeks and lips catching all his senses, as it were, in a 
swift surprise ... for there is this about real beauty, 
that it strikes you like a strong man armed, and you can- 
not, if you will, say him nay. 

‘ ‘ How do you do ?’ ’ she said, but without holding out 
her hand, possibly because it hid a half-eaten candy. ‘ ‘ I 
thought I heard my name mentioned. . . .” 

Her glance sank from his face to his telescoped hat. 
She struggled with herself for a moment, looked help- 
lessly at Daddy and Reggy, then, being all young, all 
healthy, and all without rancour, they burst out into a 
simultaneous fit of laughter that cleared the air of explo- 
sives, and for the time being made them friends. 

“ Mother is in the kitchen garden seeing to the pickles,” 
she said, as she led the way downstairs. “ I — I hope the 
cobble-stones won’t hurt your feet,” and she looked down 
at his boots, as if they were patent leather — and he a fop, 
in a way that was cruelly unfair. 


28 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


Neither could he hinder her from opening the door in 
the wall for him, and, obeying her evident wish, as he 
usuall)^ obeyed all women’s, passed through, only to find, 
when it swung to behind him, that he was alone. He 
retraced his steps, but the yard was empty, though a door 
close by moved slightly, and from behind it came a soft 
giggle, school-girlish, thoughtless, and only saved from 
sheer vulgarity by its naturalness, and pure glee. That 
was the worst of Penroses, it was not built for matters of 
a private nature, as there was a door ajar everywhere, and 
always with somebody very much alive behind it, as 
Dinkie had demonstrated that morning. 

Basil smiled, and decided not to try conclusions with 
Easter’s stalwart body-guard, while she herself, peeping 
through a chink, was thinking that a man who could 
walk bareheaded, and carry a concertina hat without 
looking a fool, most assuredly never had been, or could 
be, one. It even struck her that he might have worn it 
without looking ridiculous — and possibly she recognised 
a subtlety that had counselled him to pay a disrespectful 
visit in the most orthodox and respectful attire possible. 

“She is full of sport,” he said to himself, as he went 
in search of Mrs. Denison, while from the upper wash- 
house windows Easter admired his back, and upset the 
boys’ tempers by telling them that the man who did not; 
know how to choose a necktie was not fit to live. " 

Maria, who prided herself on her pickles, and was now 
selecting with care her vegetables for the process, 
received the young Russian with some trepidation, but 
in less than five minutes had forgotten Tom, and after a 
prolonged and most agreeable saunter round the premises 
(Basil made a point of always leaving a woman on better 
terms with herself than he found her), lost her head so 
completely as actually to invite him in to tea. This meal 
was always served in the Pig-sty, which was Tom’s 
comprehensive name for an apartment through which the 
whole family life flowed with a vigour, and it must be 
added, a litter, that defied all attempts at respectability, 
and of which he had long ago washed his hands, with 
some allusion, only understanded of Bunkulorum, to the 
purging of the Augean stables. 

Dinkie’ s fishing-net lay in one corner, the girls’ dress- 


A MAN OF TO day. 


29 


stand stood in another ; a canary shrieked above Maria’s 
sewing-machine, while a squirrel gaily worked his wheel 
at the rate of a mile a minute on the mantel-shelf, and, 
red-papered, shabby, cosy, looking out on the humours 
of the town street, it was the most frequented, as it was 
the most popular, apartment in the house. Tom occa- 
sionally took his tea and toast there, instead of in the 
stately solitude of the Green-room, knowing, poor man, 
that he was a damper on the festivities and a muffler on 
those clapper-tongues, yet still, so great is sometimes a 
man’s yearning for company, even when he knows him- 
self unwelcome, that he came. If only he should take it 
into his head to come to-day ! 

Maria fidgeted and looked uneasy when she had seated 
herself behind the tea-pot, that looked like the mother 
of a large family, but as the table filled up she took heart 
of grace, and made tea with that excellent method which 
is not to be acquired by anything save long experience, 
and for extremely large numbers. 

Nan came in dejected, but colored up brilliantly at 
sight of their guest. But for Dinkie, who had thought- 
fully sandwiched himself between the governesses on the 
humane principle of keeping a boa-constrictor and a 
rabbit apart, she would have sat down in the place beside 
him so conspicuously left empty, and across which Basil 
and Hugon had some desultory talk about Fairmile — 
and gudgeon fishing. 

Tea was half-over when Easter rushed in, wearing a 
clean white gown, her black hair neatly snooded with 
scarlet, and, without a glance at anybody, made for the 
only empty chair, and helped herself to toast and butter 
as if she were starving. 

“I’m awfully sorry to be late, mother,’’ she said, 
spreading her toast with an emancipated school-girl’s 
lavish hand, ‘ ‘ but I stopped such a long time in the 
wash-house to see what would happen — if only the Chief 
could have seen him swelling down his lawn ! And O ! 
his hat ! Fancy paying an afternoon call on us in a blue 
frock coat, and a tile /’ ’ 

A dead silence, coupled with a heavy and well-meant 
kick under the table from Dinkie, made her blood curdle. 
What if, as once before, she had overlooked the Chief in 
3 * 


30 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


those uncounted numbers around? Her alarmed gaze 
swept the table, and came to a full stop at her next-door 
neighbour, who was just then eating soda-cake as if it 
were the only thing in life worth doing thoroughly. 

There is a legend that a very shy man who stuttered 
greatly, escorted a charming woman into dinner, to whom 
for some time he did not trust himself to speak. Then 
he took heart and said, ‘ ‘ Who — who is — that sp — p — 
potted man over there ?’ ’ 

‘ ‘ That is my husband, ’ ’ she said, smiling. 

“O — h ! and is — is he sp — p — potted all overf^ re- 
sponded the stutterer, with the courage of despair. 

It was possibly in emulation of this worthy that 
Easter, meeting the laughing sunshine of Basil’s blue 
eyes full, enquired, gravely, — 

‘ ‘ Do you like your cake with soda, or without ?’ ’ 
Before he could reply to the question, or Dinkie draw 
in the cheeks that he had blown out in admiration of her 
“nerve,” the door opened, and Mr. Denison, who for 
once followed, and did not precede a silence, walked in. 

Poor Maria rattled the teacups nervously, as Tom’s 
quick eye took in the interloper, but before his glance 
of surprise could change into a scowl of angry dismissal, 
Hugon had started up, and effected an introduction in 
such fashion, that, short of turning his daughter’s guest 
into the street, he must make some sort of greeting to 
her friend. 

And by the time Mr. Denison had drunk half a cup of 
tea, and eaten a piece of toast, assiduously and trem- 
blingly buttered by Melons, the two men found them- 
selves talking horses, and if that noble beast has the 
peculiar privilege of making rogues of all who approach 
him from a business point of view, he assuredly makes 
them bosom friends for the time being. And when Mr. 
Denison found a man who suited him, and who was, like 
himself, a sportsman to the backbone, he was not the sort 
of person to let fears for the female part of his family 
make him abjure such pleasant company, so that it was 
with something said about “ a quiet dinner to-morrow” 
(overheard, as all things were overheard at Penroses), 
that an hour or so later, after a saunter round the stables, 
the two men amicably parted. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 31 

“ Hugon,” said Easter, with conviction, “ I do believe 
you are Satan himself!” 

“No, call me Mrs. Satan. Because she knew every 
one of his tricks — and all her own besides.” 


CHAPTER IV. 

“ From the ‘dim dawn of history / and from the innermost depths of 
every soul, the face of our Father Man looks out upon us with the fire 
of eternal youth in his eyes, and says, ‘ Before Jehovah was, I am !”* 

It must not for a moment be supposed that because a 
stranger had dropped in for a morning call at Penroses and 
stayed, that the family life stood still on his account, or 
ploughed for itself new channels ; quite the contrary in- 
deed — for it went on just as usual. If it could assimilate 
such a riddle as Hugon without accident, it could support 
a Strokoff with serenity, and storm and shine alternated 
with its usual regularity in the domestic atmosphere, 
where it was a recognised fact that when Tom was ex- 
pansive, Maria was nippy-like, and the other way round, 
so that nobody ever got ruined by over praise, or cock- 
ered up into the useless belief that life is all beer and 
skittles — except to the wicked. 

Nan still spent her time regularly between bust-ups and 
repentances, for even Basil could not rule her life other- 
wise. Easter divided her thoughts pretty equally between 
frills (that she loved) and lovers (whom she did not love). 
Dinkie vainly tried to combine billiards and the loose de- 
lights of the ‘ ‘ town’ ’ with punctuality at meal times ; 
Bunkulorum had occasional backslidings in the direction 
of snails, and upward flights into the regions of imagi- 
nation, while Peggy, aged ten, was detected receiving 
love-letters from Dicky Langdon, aged eleven. It had 
been discovered by accident, as most guilty secrets are, 
and perched on a high chair at the family tea-table, poor 
Peggy was duly indicted, and having had the verj'- inmost 
recesses of her heart rudely invaded, received the ironical 
congratulations of her brothers and sisters on the un- 
rivalled potency of her charms. All of this Peggy bore 


32 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


with a very tolerable stomach, being seasoned to the 
amenities of family life, but when Dinkie took up the 
cudgels on her behalf, loudly enquiring why the little 
blue-eyed, red-nosed charmer should not have a sweet- 
heart all to herself, and love-letters of her very own, 
especially with such an example in the family as she con- 
stantly had before her eyes, Peggy burst into an agony 
of tears and, scrambling down from her high chair, fled, 
while Maria, after promptly boxing the ears of all who 
were not too old to be boxed, hurried off to administer 
comfort to her darling, a careful silence being ever after- 
w^ards observed by all parties concerned on the subject. 

There were no “ructions,” as Dinkie had greedily an- 
ticipated, between the only two men who were granted 
the front-door entrance of Penroses. When Basil came 
across Jem, which was pretty often, the two met in a 
thoroughly friendly spirit, that in some odd way curiously 
exasperated Easter, whose mind just then was more a 
puzzle to her than if it had belonged to somebody else, 
for everybody seemed to be in love with Basil save her- 
self. Even Dinkie, after studying him closely, making 
an exhaustive examination of his clothes, and candidly in- 
forming that gentleman it must be “the way he put ’em 
on, as they were cut pretty much like other people’s,” had 
formally announced the Muscovite as emphatically of the 
“right sort,” and extended to him the hand of friendship. 

And Basil and Mr. Denison, who had begun well, be- 
came the firmest of friends, and often the Russian would 
go down to the factories, would stand in the midst of the 
hum and the whirr of machinery, and feel his pulses 
go quicker and his heart faster, as if from himself radiated 
those throbbing arteries of steel — and at such moments, 
like a fierce breath of life in his nostrils, he would feel 
that work was good, and his own perpetual leisure a thing 
without salt and savour. His elegant figure became a 
familiar one at the works, moving among the whirling 
looms, or in the engine-room, watching the iron shafts 
and wheels revolving, insensible to the infernal heat and 
smell of oil, and to that deafness which even for a few 
moments is by most people angrily resented. It was a 
strange friendship, almost as strange as the one that sub- 
sisted between Basil and Nan, but in both instances it 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


33 


throve apace, and left all the rest of the family, Easter 
included, altogether out of the running. 

It had become the fashion at Penroses, where no 
privacy of heart was allowed, to speak of Easter and 
Basil as the Sun and the Moon, because neither at the 
same time illuminated the social firmament. This mutual 
avoidance of two such uncommon persons appeared 
rather to follow the fixed courses of nature than to arise 
from any preconceived determination of their own, a 
variety of causes apparently drawing each out of the 
other’s orbit, however much they might have desired to 
draw nearer. To drop the metaphor of heavenly bodies, 
with whomsoever the impulse of avoidance had begun, 
the other had promptly seconded it, greatly to the satis- 
faction of Tom Denison, who, at odd moments, felt 
qualms at the ease with which he had admitted an utter 
stranger to his almost orientally guarded family life. 
And he was beginning to resign himself to Jem. If 
Easter were resolved to make a fool of herself by marry- 
ing, she might do worse than — Jem — but he swallowed 
the pill, prospectively, with an exceedingly bad grace. 

Hugon had niched herself, and actually inside that 
charmed circle which Mrs. Denison drew round her own 
hearth, while she had won Tom’s good graces by accom- 
panying him in those constitutionals round the premises 
that he affected and listening to his grievances. Not 
one of these lolling, lazy creatures, with eyes sharp as 
needles to everyone’s faults but their own, would take 
any interest in the things that he loved, but only in what 
immediately concerned themselves, and, as a trifling 
instance, he could not induce any child of his to love his 
garden. All the women of Tom’s family had been 
notable gardeners, and it is a fact that let the most 
discontented, morbid-mindea man on earth take earnestly 
to the gentle art, and his mind and body will begin to 
be purified, and insensibly he will become wholesome, 
sound, and happy. Dig in your garden, Mr. or Miss 
Misanthrope, plant young seedlings, and thrill for joy as 
you see them growing up ; get the fresh scents of the 
earth into your stale brain, and the healthy juices of 
nature into your blood, and you will come to love the 
breath of the flower you have reared, and to turn constantly 


34 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


from the disappointing page of human nature to those 
simple pleasures that insensibly elevate the soul, and 
bring a profound restfulness and peace not far removed 
from the ripest philosophy. For such of you there is 
always a haunt 

“ Full of soft dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.” 

Another sore point was, that Tom had come of a 
family where all the women were born managers, and in 
his estimation Maria was a muddler. Unconsciously, I 
think, the alliteration pleased him — much as if he had 
found himself talking poetry without having been at any 
pains to acquire the art. He had very strong opinions 
about how girls should be brought up, and thought that 
if they were made to perform house duties, the country 
would soon be free of the curse and tyranny of servants, 
but to bring up a lot of boys and girls to “dandle 
round’ ’ and order people about was entirely wrong, for 
thus they never learned the dignity, the sweetness, and 
the rest of work. 

He used to tell Maria that a fine ought to be inflicted on 
every woman in Great Britain who did not herself know, 
and teach her daughters, how to cook, and surely he was 
right. 

Learn, mid' you can talk to your cook, and she will re- 
spect you. Complexions may pale, love may dw'indle to 
vanishing point, hope die of inanition, but a well-cooked 
meal will bring peace to a man’s vexed spirit, and dispose 
him favourably to the person who has ordered it. 

It takes a good many trifles to make a man address his 
wife as “ my dear” in a tone that suggests she is anyone’s 
dear rather than his, and it suggests a suspicion, founded 
on fact, when a wife narrowly scans every female waist 
that approaches her female circle, lest it prove a tempta- 
tion to the male eye. Nevertheless, as is usual with peo- 
ple who disagree the most, and are utterly incompatible 
in their habits and tempers, Tom and Maria rejoiced in 
an immense family that throve with amazing success in a 
more or less tempestuous domestic atmosphere, and in this 
breezy, open-air life Hugon, the stranger woman, throve 
and expanded like a cellar plant set in the eye of the sun, 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


35 


while the very absence of intellectual or introspective life 
worked on her like a charm, for at Penroses no one thought 
of picking his soul to pieces, "and spotting every dark cor- 
ner in it (for even Nan could not be called morbid), and 
the unselfish action, the kind impulse, the right thought, 
were not exalted into heroism ; they came naturally, and 
passed without comment. In the whole family not a 
poseur was to be found ; life there was homogeneous, and 
not made up of shreds and patches all overshadowed by 
the dominant “ I.” And Hugon had actually been per- 
suaded by Easter into a white frock, affording in it another 
striking proof of how impossible it is for anything young 
to be really ugly, and indeed, away from Easter, she ac- 
tually achieved distinction. 

To please everybody is a sure sign that you must, at 
some period of your life, have displeased yourself very 
much, and Basil wondered what manner of man had had 
the making, or the marring, of her. They were excel- 
lent friends, and thoroughly agreed with Solomon that all 
is vanity, only the man’s ungrateful reasons for arriving 
at this conclusion were because he had had a surfeit of 
pleasure, while the woman’s were the very opposite, be- 
cause she had never known any at all. 

Hugon had clearly never enjoyed herself— ergo she 
must be good — ^and, indeed, she displayed an antagonis- 
tic spirit to the male sex that, in these dog-days, often 
made her refreshingly acid company. 

It is mostly a man who demoralises a woman, because 
he asks so little of her. She is a “poor little woman,’’ 
no matter how wrong, or weak, or silly, but to be really 
approved by a noble sister-woman means much, and is a 
crown of glory to her who wins it. 

Easter, whether dodging an insolent shaver round a 
tree, or picking currants for preserves, or sitting by her 
mother’s side making those white frills in which her soul 
delighted, or flouting Jem, or frivoling round with her 
“ Boys,’’ whom she unblushingly hid from the Chief in 
unlikely places, was alike unapproachable, enchanting, 
and insultingly fancy-free. At Fairmile, it had never 
occurred to Basil that there might be a soul and spirit 
betwixt that exquisite skin of hers — but it did occa- 
sionally occur to him now. Easter always running away, 


3 ^ 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


Nan nearly always close at hand — never wearying him, 
but exhaustless as inspired young things are, who give 
out their very best when young, eager, with all their 
ideals and passionate hopes new and lusty upon them, 
they made a perpetual contrast in his eyes, that gave him 
keenest pleasure — or he had not lingered. 

Yet, if he had known it, the chiefest feeling in Easter’s 
mind was that of smarting, keen humiliation. It is al- 
ways a ridiculous position when, having brandished your 
arm, rehearsed effects, and loaded yourself to the muzzle 
with, “Sir! unhand me! I love you not! Avaunt!” 
the sir mizzles out at the back door, without ever making 
love to you at all, and a label of “ No Intentions !” dis- 
played on his back. A woman is as jealous of her pre- 
rogative of saying “No” as a man is of his right to 
demand “Yes.” He knows that in the full ardour of the 
chase he is manly, admirable, endowed with every pos- 
sibility of god-ship, but driven into a corner and courted, 
he is sulky, undignified, and seldom yields as captive 
with any attempt at grace. And the greatest joy of a 
woman’s life is yielding — or refusing. There is no finer 
touch in George Eliot’s delineation of human character 
than where Gwendolen, though Grandcourt is personally 
displeasing to her, has no idea of making herself unde- 
sirable to him, or outraging his fastidious taste, and so is 
careful to put the scent he prefers on her handkerchief — 
even if afterwards she lets him drown before her eyes 
without making an effort to save him. 

Thus Easter, having regarded the right of choice as 
being solely in her own hands, had been amazed at Basil’s 
tacit withdrawal from his court, and angry that he had 
not even given her a chance of trying that old and infal- 
lible receipt for keeping a man’s heart — first make your- 
self perfectly sweet, then treat him as badly as you know 
how. And it’s a stabbing thought to a lovely young 
woman that her charms have failed her — call her wicked, 
call her mad, but to let her see that she has no power 
oyer you is perdition ; and though it was true Easter had 
given him no opportunity, the man who is not his own 
Providence in such matters is a fool or — unwilling. 

And often as Basil now dined of evenings at Penroses, 
Easter, with one of those small feminine slaps that women 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


37 


love to administer to over-bold or over-backward swains, 
never appeared on such occasions, nor was she afterwards 
to be found in that many-windowed drawing-room up- 
stairs, in whose pale chocolate satin cushions she was 
fond at other times of burying herself. 

And Tom Denison smiled, putting down Easter’s ec- 
centricities of conduct to “temper.” She was not his 
child and Maria’s for nothing, and the fiery spirit of the 
one, the gentle obstinacy and grit of the other, united 
their forces in her/and formed a “ kink” by no means 
easy to unravel.,-^^^ e are all the product of the seeds 
sown by our ancestors, yet when in our minds or bodies 
a tendency, a vice, a virtue, or a talent appears, we look 
at it puzzled and incredulous, as if Nature were Art, and 
trying to make fools of us. A hard ache comes into the 
knee, a darting pain in the breast, rheumatism, cancer — 
heredity again ; and when some wretched man bursts out 
into homicidal mania, slaying all upon whom he can lay 
hands, what is it but the recurring instinct of some fight- 
ing ancestor, to whom bloodshed was a trade, and by 
right of which every savage, ungovernable instinct of 
his soul was fully licensed to gratify itself? 

So with talent. A mere child takes pen in hand, and 
describes with startling lucidity and point what it observes 
and feels — it has been born with the gift of reproduction 
or expression ; another infant seizes pencil and sketches 
some trifle at sight in absolutely true proportions — it is 
born with the gift of ‘ ‘ form ;’ ’ some curious difference in 
its sight to that of others has turned him out an artist 
whether he will or no. And so on indefinitely, and 
strong indeed must be the will that stands up against 
taints and tendencies as much inwoven with our blood 
as the freak that is stamped on the butterfly’s wing, or 
the markings in flowers that appear with unswerving 
fidelity from generation to generation. We cannot alter 
those markings, but it is in our power to make the evil 
ones grow fainter, and the strong impulse that may rise 
in us to crush out all low motives and passions, and live 
the higher life, may be the original seed of noble deeds 
and endeavours in our descendants, hundreds of years 
after we, with all our struggles and tears and failures, are 
dust. Thus may not the prompting thought to do good, 

4 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


38 


the n^le ideal lifting itself clear out of the sloth of dull 
habit;come to us direct from some earnest soul that has 
sinned and suffered, yet struggled a step nearer to God 
than did his predecessor, /even as some long past sensual 
life still has power to throw its slime oy^ us, and strive 
to hold us back from our better selves ? ■ So in one single 
human being is represented the influences of the past, the 
potentialities of the present, and the illimitable responsi- 
bilities of the generations yet unborn. 



CHAPTER V. 


“That which seems obstinacy in some people may appear con- 
stancy in others.” — Cicero. 

“She tells lies,” said Melons, calmly. “The Chief 
nearly bowled her out yesterday, and I saw Sweet Wil- 
liam, who was handing me the potatoes, give the Snap- 
per a wink.” 

“His name is William,” remonstrated the Ancient 
Mariner, from the place where she wielded an imaginary 
bdton of authority, “and I must beg of you. Melons, to 
remember that Cato advises us to think it the first of 
duties to restrain the tongue, and says he approaches 
nearest to God who knows when to be silent.” 

“Didn’t somebody say that the old gods were noth- 
ing but men and wine ? And certainly they did some 
jolly human things,” said Melons, whose memory some- 
times provided strictly unorthodox scraps of information. 
“Well, from all /’ve seen of men, they are foolish enough 
without the wine, so I don’t think the old boys could 
have been up to much. And as to the Old Testament 
worthies, why, ma’am, when I heard you teaching Peggy 
out of ‘ Line upon Line’ the other day, your questions 
and her answers, it curdled my blood. I s’ pose when I 
was young I didn’ t realise the utter iniquitousness of the 
doings of the old patriarchs, but now I do, I say it’s 
wicked to hold up such examples to children, and if our 
kings and queens tried on some of those old patriarchal 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


39 


ways, why, there would be a good many crowns going 
to avuncular relatives— but they durstn’t, and somehow 
revolutions ain’t English.'^ 

“Girls,” said the Ancient Mariner, horrified, “this 
is a drawing lesson, not a scandalous dissertation on 
Man.” She spoke respectfully of the terrible and dan- 
gerous creature — possibly she might have displayed less 
fear, had not her waist been from early youth horrific to 
the male eye. 

‘ ‘ And if the Muscovite were not so cool, his eyes so 
blue, and his manners so mellifluous,” continued Mel- 
ons, mixing her colours recklessly, “I would back Jem 
Burgh ersh in Easter’s affections. Jem is much the big- 
ger of the two — and you can always bully a big man, the 
little man always bullies you. If a little man dared to 
put his arm round my waist. I’d murder him !” 

“ My dear !” ejaculated the scandalised Ancient Mariner. 

‘ ‘ Do you suppose I go among poor people for nothing?’ ’ 
enquired Melons; “all big folks are good-hearted and 
weak-minded, more or less, and they are all managed by 
the little ones. I’d rather marry ever such a hulking 
wretch of a man — if he were yards long, than a strutter. 
You might reform a big man ; the little one is certain to 
try and reform you.” 

“ Basil is not little,” objected Nan, with elbows on her 
drawing board, and earnest eyes looking out of her tangle 
of red hair. 

“ Five feet eleven at the outside,” said Melons, “but 
he’s got an air and looks more. And I don’t believe he 
ever dreamt of falling in love with Easter — there !’ ’ 

“Nor Easter with him,” cried Nan, indignantly. 

“Our female Narcissus in love?” said Dinkie, who had 
come in and caught the last words ; “ perish the thought ! 
Some things are made to be looked at, others to be eaten 
— Easter and I belong to the former class. You don’t 
seem very well, ma’am,” he said, stooping down to look 
at the Ancient Mariner, who had begun to flap up and 
down like a barn-door fowl when a fox is around ; ‘ ‘ hadn’t 
you better rest for an hour?” 

He opened the door politely as he spoke, and the 
Ancient Mariner took the hint, and dribbled herself out 
of sight. 


40 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


“What is the matter with her?” he enquired. “ I do 
believe she has fallen in love with Strokoff ! If you look 
at her she totters, and if you sneeze at her she goes into 
a hundred pieces !” 

“There are people,” said Melons, “who lie down flat 
on their backs and let the clouds roll by — the Mariner is 
one of them. She has got a bilious attack, and was 
longing to give way to it — that’s all.” 

“Well,” said Dinkie, “she’s an interesting relic — the 
sort of thing you girls may come to if you sit up and 
behave, and forget everything you’ve ever learnt, more 
especially what /’ve taught you. Where’s Easter?” 

“Making frills, I expect, after sending Jem off to his 
Pillow of Consolation. The Pillow means to nobble him, 
I believe, but he don’t see it.” 

“Stuff!” said Dinkie, robustly. “Can’t any fool see 
she is his Pillow of Consolation upon which to lean com- 
fortably, and say all the things about Easter that Easter 
won’t let him say to herself? Jem’s too meek by half.” 

“ ‘ A man, a spaniel, a walnut-tree, 

The more you beat ’em the better they be 1’ ” 

droned Melons. 

“Jealous — -jealous again!” said Dinkie, aggravatingly ; 
“you’d like to be a man — and you ain’t one — that’s 
about the size of it.” 

“And pray,” said Melons, witheringly, “what is there 
in being a man to be proud of?’ ’ 

“ Lots. Don’t the Jews go down on their knees every 
time they enter their synagogues and say, fervently, ‘ O 
Lord God, blessed art Thou who hast not made me a 
woman!’? Nobody ever heard a man wish himself a 
female. You’ve got your advantages, though,” he 
added, magnificently: “you get the wing of a chicken, 
and the privilege of saying ‘No’ when a man asks you !” 

“Selfish pigs,” said Melons, “you ask us to please 
yourselves, not us. The only real advantage you have 
over us is — your clothes. A woman is handicapped all 
her life long with hers. A wretched man bawls out when 
he is going to a dance or dinner, ‘ Have I a clean shirt?’ 
It is his sole amount of preparation for the most mo- 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


41 


mentous affair — he may have dozens of shirts, he doesn’t 
know — he’s on thorns till he does know, and if there is 
one — he’s happy. While a woman has to think of a 
thousand things, and perhaps after all looks a fright. I 
admit that you are great there, but in nothing else. And 
you have your pockets. I grant you those. It’s enough 
to ruin the temper of any woman to see a man a walking 
store- cupboard, while she, poor wretch, has only one 
pocket for everything, and obliged to sit down on that. 
If a Female had made the universe, Dinkie, things would 
be pleasanter for women, and they’d be made — differ- 
ent.” 

“It would be a sweet world to live in, no doubt,” said 
Dinkie, meditatively, “and in that case. Melons, perhaps 
you’d be born — handsomer.” 

Here the conversation became personal, and scurrilous. 
You must be graphic or die, in a large family, and when 
you do get a brief innings, you are a fool if you do not 
make the most of it. The successful people of the world 
have mostly, I think, belonged to large families. 

“But, console yourself, my Melons,” wound up 
Dinkie. “There are lots of men who wouldn’t dare to 
ask a good-looking woman to marry them who will very 
likely find courage to a.sk jyou. Odd — ain’t it? — that a 
fraction too much on your nose or lip — sl little colour in 
the wrong place, and it’s ugliness ; just the right amount, 
and in the right place, and it’s beauty. And there you 
are. You needn’t even grin unless you like. You give 
so much pleasure that nobody wants you to do anything 
but sit still and be looked at. And you ought to be paid 
to go out to evening parties, and not even expected to 
make yourself civil !’ ’ 

“You speak so feelingly,” said Melons, “that one 
would think you were a beauty yourself. Which you 
ain’t.” 

Dinkie scowled. He had truculent eyebrows, huge 
thighs and sinews, and was chiefly remarkable for an 
agreeable habit of taking his coat off, and asking any 
male thing he happened to disagree with to come and 
have it out round the corner. He was moreover blessed 
with curly brown hair, and it is just that same curl in the 
hair which often makes all the difference between an ugly 
4* 


42 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


and a pretty girl, or a plain and a good-looking man, 
though few people know it. 

“Just let me catch you purloining things out of my 
drawers for the Snapper again,” he said, “and you’ll 
hear of it. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ ‘ The Lord helps those who help themselves. Come 
in and help yourself at this store.’ That is what an en- 
terprising man posted up outside his shop,” said Melons, 
coolly, ‘ ‘ and you shouldn’ t have such a choice assortment 
of everything if the poor Snapper at a critical period of 
his career isn’t to touch ’em !” 

‘ ‘ Who is the new young woman ?’ ’ said Dinkie, grin- 
ning broadly, ‘ ‘ four times his own size as usual ? Hullo ! 
What makes Nan so jolly white?” 

Nan put her hand up to her cheek. “ It’s — it’s chalk. 
I rubbed my face all over with it before breakfast this 
morning, just to see if any of you would notice it, and 
think I looked pale — but nobody even looked at me.” 

“It’s lucky we ain’t a kissing lot,” said Dinkie, gri- 
macing, ‘ ‘ and pray what on earth do you want people to 
notice you for ? Vm only too thankful to be let alone.” 

Nan sighed, and looked down on her ragged skirt. 
There was not a railing in the place that was not adorned 
by a scrap of her clothing, or a tree she had not climbed, 
and tumbled out of. Some people are wicked and happy, 
others are wicked and miserable. Nan belonged to the 
latter class. 

“Dinkie,” suddenly screamed out Melons, “there’s 
smoke coming out of your pocket !” 

“ Must have sat on my lucifers,” said Dinkie, turning 
up the tail of his coat and calmly crushing its smoking 
contents. 

“The Chief has forbidden you to smoke,” said Melons, 
reproachfully, “and everybody knows that smoking leads 
to drinking ” 

“ Ho, ho, ho ! ” said Dinkie, rolling about in an ecstasy 
of mirth. ‘ ‘ What do you think old Shrubsole said to 
me the other day ? I met him with a blue ribbon in his 
buttonhole and enquired what on earth it meant. He 
said he had joined the army because he thought it must 
be so delicious to be tempted — and to fall! Now, for 
my part I hate teetotalers, it gives ’em so much more 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


43 


Space limit for getting themselves and other people into 
mischief. You know he lets out a trap on hire ? I asked 
how many it held. He said, ‘ Twelve really, but six- 
Xteen — if intimate.'' I say, girls, I believe Bunkulorum’s 
gone a buster on snails again. I found the tool-house 
door locked just now ” — which was a damning fact, as it 
was here that Bunkulorum had originally been discovered 
conducting cooking operations over the furnace fire. 

In spite of Bunkulorum’s quoting history, and urging 
French precedent, he had been politely sent to Coventry 
and endowed with the full baptismal name of Shrompy- 
Snail-broth ; no one would kiss him at any price, and 
the family nose curled at his approach. It is true he had 
before this showed a tendency to other depraved tastes, 
such as quoting Shakespeare (which was insulting, as 
none of the others knew anything about that gentleman, 
or wanted to either), and trying superior airs on the 
strength of his book learning that only came back, like 
boomerangs in an unskilled hand, to hit him violently 
on the head. 

“O! let him alone,” said Melons. “Some people 
like one thing, some another. You may like something 
worse some day.” 

‘ ‘ Precisely, my love. I may even live, when I have 
made a failure of everything else in life, to make a suc- 
cess of my stomach — as the Ancient Mariner does. Do 
you observe that Hugon never eats onions? Now, a 
person can't be healthy who don’t like spring onions — it 
may be low, but it’s human nature, while your refined 
person who squirms at the sight of ’em — mark rny 
words,” he added, oracularly, ‘‘if she hasn’t got a his- 
tory, I’ll eat her.” 

“I’m sorry for her,” said Nan. “ Her eyes hurt me 
— somebody must have been awful bad to her to make 
her look like that." 

“Hurt herself, you mean,” said Dinkie, robustly. 
“It isn’t other people’s wrong doings cut you up to that 
extent — it’s your own; and when you begin by being 
very sorry for a person, you usually end by being sorry 
for yourself. O ! yes, miss, you may scowl, but Hugon’ s 
the sort of person you love passionately at a distance— 
you count up all her good qualities and diligently commit 


44 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


them to memory — and then, the moment you see that 
person, you go for ’em like a terrier for a rat ! You bet 
there isn’t much she don’t know — and hasn’t done. Net 
result — face like an extinct volcano, no friends, and the 
post of cudgeller-in-chief of youthful wits at Fairmile. 
There’s something wrong somewhere — then look at her 
hands ! What was she before she became a governess ? 
They’re too scarred for even a lady-help — when you’re a 
lady you work so much harder than any servant does — 
but anyway those hands have a history, and you bet 
they’ve done some queer work in their time. And I 
never could abide an ugly woman. ’ ’ 

“She isn’t ugly,’’ said Melons, nodding. “If there 
is ever any question about a woman’s ugliness — not of 
her being a beauty — you may always decide it in the 
negative. Ugliness — real ugliness’’ (unconsciously she 
looked at Nan) — “ is so unmistakable you can’t misname 
it. Any apology for it even is thankfully accepted. 
And Hugon is distinctly interesting — Jem certainly finds 
her so.’’ 

“Jem likes Hugon,” said Nan, who always stood up 
for the absent. “He told me himself he had a very 
great respect for her.” 

‘ ‘ When a man has a great respect for a female, that 
same respect removes her from the category of attractive 
and marriageable persons,” said Dinkie. “But come. 
Melons, do not, like the blacks at Mandeville, who when 
brought into court hold a pebble in their mouths, being 
under the impression that so provided perjury does not 
count, put a pebble in yours, but tell us honourably how 
things stand between ’em all?” 

But Melons declined to be drawn. 

‘ ‘ I never see Easter speak to Basil, ’ ’ she said, ‘ ‘ nor 
he to her.” 

‘ ‘ He certainly keeps most of his conversation for 
Nan,” said Dinkie, ruminatingly, “though even if she 
were years older nobody could suspect anyone of being 
in love with Nan ! But I don’t think he takes any of us 
seriously. Penroses is a mere episode to him — no more. 
And meteors are very beautiful apparitions, no doubt, 
but the sky stops — and they go. Such men were never 
intended to marry, my Melons, but to be the joy of the 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


45 


whole female sex. You don’t suppose he got those 
delightful manners of his for nothing, do you ? They 
are a monument raised to the frailty of your sex ! But, 
*pon my soul, girls, do you know what he and Easter 
remind me of? Why” (Dinkie’s similes were usually 
the reverse of elegant), “of two rival stags, equals in 
beauty, strength, and fleetness, who when they meet toss 
their heads, paw the ground, snort defiance, then wend 
their stately way apart, each grandly disdainful of the 
other. Both Easter and Strokoff want to play first fiddle, 
^nd neither means to play second. And woman is a 
fighting animal, you know — extremely so.” 

“Man, you mean,” said Melons. 

“No — woman. The world would be an abode of 
peace but for woman. She is always fighting for some- 
thing — for new clothes, or a new man, or power, or out 
^of pure cussedness — but she hardly ever stops still.” 

“And what about boys?” said Melons, with much 
contempt, “who are insuflerably rude to and secretly 
jealous of girls? Well, time mends that, and later on 
they come very much under the dominion of— girls. At a 
still later period they revert to their original attitude and 
despise feminines — but you are too young and ignorant, 
Dinkie, to have got any further than the first stage ! 
And, anyway, we can get on w’lthont you; you can’t get 
on without us. And Easter doesn’t Basil.” 

“ Don’t you be so sure about that,” said Dinkie, nod- 
ding; “because one’s a work of art one’s apt to think 
oneself exempt from the common lot, yet the Venus of 
Milo lost her arms, my children, and a sculptor’s joy 
has before now been seen without her nose ! Therefore 
^nay Easter yet have to learn a lesson she won’t like, for 
though you may be a goddess on occasion, you’ve got to 
'^be a woman most of your time ! And sooner or later, 
according to the Chief’s temper, or the length of time 
that elapses before she feels the joys of our company pall 
upon her, Easter will appear under the heading of 
‘ Hatches, Matches, and Despatches,’ and marry Jem.” 

“Jem isn’t half good enough for her,” said Nan, with 
kindling eyes. 

“O, yes, he is. There’ll be cakes and ale for Jem’s 
wife all the way along — and let us be cheerful or die. 


46 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


It’s like a painful, beautiful play — we go and weep at it, 
but we take jolly good care never to go again ! Our 
Muscovite would see clean through a woman in five 
minutes and find her sawdust, which is an upsetting 
process to a goddess, you’ll admit, and not at all in 
Easter’s line.” 

‘ ‘ Basil would make any woman happy whom he 
loved,” cried Nan, in hot indignation. 

“And pray, miss,” said Dinkie, shooting out his chin 
aggravatingly at her, ‘ ‘ what do you know of the points 
of a good husband? However, in case either of you 
should ever have a chance of marrying — it isn’t likely, 
but there are some fools going about the world — let me 
^ive you a few plain hints on making your selection. 

' For a man’s birth, look to his linen and finger nails, and 
observe the inflections of his voice. For his tastes, 
study the colour of his ties, the pattern and ha;ig of his 
trousers, his friends and his rings — if any. For his 
propensities, walk round and look carefully at the back 
of his head, and remember, girls, never to marry a man 
whose neck bulges ever so little over his collar ; a man 
must be a good animal to do his work well, but not too 
much of an animal, or he’s a beast. If you want a 
successful man, see that he has a neat foot ; he will move 
quicker, get over obstacles faster, than a man who falls 
over his own toes, and trips up other folks with ’em too. 
For his breeding, talk sentiment to him when he is starv- 
ing, and ask him to carry a band-box down the public 
street when you’ve just had a row. To test his temper, 
tell him his nose is a little on one side and you don’t like 
the way his hair grows — and if that won’t fetch him, 
nothing will.” 

“ Easter won’t Jem,” said Melons, sturdily. 

“O, yes, she will, she’ll climb down — she’ll climb 
down ! I defy any girl to live in the country without a 
lover. How can you look at a blooming old moon all by 
yourself with nobody to help you count the pimples on 
it? And what’s the good of a haystack without some- 
body to sit under it with you ? And a long lane has a 
deuced lonely look if someone isn’t waiting for you at the 
corner of it ! So you’ll see if Easter doesn’t out of sheer 
dulness when Basil’s gone take up with Jem.” 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


47 


“And meanwhile,’* said Melons, who was nothing if 
not prosaic, ‘ ‘ father has got on his check trousers, and 
there’s a storm in the air.’’ 

“ Let it blow,’’ said Dinkie, resignedly. “There is an 
enormous lot to be said in favour of a good bust-up now 
and then. You should always boil up when you are 
ready — then you’re nicely skimmed, and quite ready for 
use when really wanted. In fact, I’ve come to the con- 
clusion that the healthiest people are those who occasion- 
ally let themselves go — they bear no malice — they have 
pleased themselves, even if they haven’t pleased you, 
cleared the slate of everything in one glorious sweep, and 
are happy. Now, a person stuffed full of silent grievances, 
and choked indignations, ain’t wholesome; he’ll get 
cancer sooner or later if he don’t look out — or poison 
somebody.” 

“ I say !” cried the Snapper, rushing in like a whirl- 
wind, “the Sun and the Moon are actually talking! 
I’ve seen ’em — and if we hide in the shrubbery we’ll be 
able to hear ’em too !” 

Now, Easter, who had been playing croquet with Jem 
(having indeed so frank a kindness or contempt for him 
that she never even took the trouble to avoid his company 
as she did Basil’s), had so lost patience at the way her 
opponent deliberately spooned her ball into position, and 
took all the heart and go out of the game by his pusillan- 
imous neglect of his own interests, and barefaced cheat- 
ings on her behalf, that finally she stamped her foot, called 
him names, and sent him off with that proverbial flea in 
the ear that all maidens are supposed to keep handy for 
the lovers who do not please them — even when fleas are 
not in season — ^as in March. 

Whereupon she went on playing with much satisfaction 
by herself, for croquet was a game that commended itself to 
Easter by reason of its leisurely grace, and pleasant sur- 
roundings of cool shadows and heavenly garden scents, 
just as she loathed lawn tennis for its ungraceful, blowsy 
ways and extraordinary knack of showing a woman in 
every respect at her very worst. 

She was sauntering, then, to and fro between the long 
poplar shadows, p)itting White against Red, and with fine 
impartiality essaying the impossible problem of making 


48 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


both win, when Basil suddenly appeared beside her, as it 
were, out of the earth, the shrubbery being as bad as a 
screen from behind which unsuspected and undesired 
bodies were wont to issue. She shied away from him 
with a vigour that spoke volumes, but he merely pulled 
down his waistcoat after the fashion of all well-bred young 
men when they have a little spare time, and asked if he 
might have the pleasure of trying to beat her, and look- 
ing as if he thoroughly meant it too. 

Easter had always a curiously detached way of looking 
at, and speaking to, Basil, and to-day it was more marked 
than usual as she gave the desired permission, and he 
went off to fish his ball out of the calceolaria bed in which 
it reposed, hurrying himself in no wise, while she stood 
looking after him with that deep sense of indignity, al- 
most of brutal ill-treatment, that the whole affair had 
inflicted upon her. For she knew that she was just a 
bagatelle in this man’s life, that mere attraction had 
brought them together— the sort of thing that makes a 
woman hate being a woman — but that they had never at- 
tempted to understand each other as comrades, never met 
at any one of those thousand points dl appui that make a 
real friendship between a man and a woman, and which 
must come before love, or comprehension even, if love 
is to be an abiding guest and not a sordid lodger. There 
was no dignity, no comfort whatever, in their relation 
one to another, and the humiliation the mere sight of 
him caused her was death to any friendly or natural feel- 
ing towards him. 

Basil did not play croquet like Jem — quite the reverse. 
He was so keen on winning that he never missed a point 
in his own favour, and croqueted Easter more spitefully 
and sent her farther than she had ever been sent before 
in her life. In hurrying to pay him out in his own coin 
she presently struck her ankle violently, thereby realizing 
how purely imaginary most of our joys and sorrows 
really are, since sharp physical pain will put them, and 
everything else, clean out of our heads. 

“I shall have that croquet over again,” she cried, 
flashing round on him with smarting tears of pain in her 
eyes, angry with herself, too, at losing her temper, 
though when a woman knows herself in the wrong she 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


49 


usually does something worse to make herself appear 
better. 

Basil made no difficulty, he even pressed the two balls 
together under her slim foot, and laughed up at her as 
he kneeled to do it. 

“Now don’t hit yourself again,” he said, with some- 
thing in his voice that suggested an experience, an as- 
cendency over women’s minds that startled the girl, 
instantly rousing in her all that was most combative and 
unyielding. 

“I won’t take it,” she said, defiantly, throwing back 
her head, and while he took her at her word, incidentally 
observed that nature had smudged in Easter’s eyebrows 
with brio, and at exactly the right angle for expressing 
all the emotions, tragic, comic, and all the rest of them, 
that a woman could possibly desire to feel — or a man 
desire to teach her. 

From this point he progressed gloriously from hoop to 
hoop, till he finally hit the stick with a healthy whack 
that expressed the real good-will with which he beat her. 
So far, the spies, hidden in the shrubbery, had not been 
refreshed by those flowers of conversation they expected ; 
but now, as Easter threw down her mallet and moved 
towards the house, Basil felt a sudden impulse to de- 
tain her. She wore a pink-cotton gown, and I don’t be- 
lieve the devil himself is a match for a woman in a pink 
gown — it isn’t the age of the woman that matters, the 
color is everything, and for a moment, at least, Easter’s 
pink gown nearly made a fool of him. 

“Don’t you think,” he said, pushing back his straw 
hat, and coming so near her that the blueness of his eyes 
and the clear brown of his skin positively startled her, 

‘ ‘ that it is rather — warm — to be so bad-tempered ?’ ’ 

It was not warm at all. The delicious coolness of even- 
ing was over all, and those scents which refuse to yield 
themselves to the sun were stealing timidly abroad and 
falling like benedictions on the air. 

Easter laughed. Full of the delightful quality of youth, 
its freshness, its irresponsibility, above all, its heart- 
wholeness, was that laugh, and Basil nodded approvingly 
as he said, — 

“That’s right. I like to hear you laugh. Standing 
c d 5 


50 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


on your dignity pins doesn’t suit your style at all — most 
unbecoming, I assure you.” 

Shades of Jem ! why did not he promptly appear, and 
trounce this insolent critic? As Easter trembled between 
astonishment and mirth, for the first time probably in 
their lives they looked full and long into each other’s 
faces, and, possibly for pure pleasure at what they saw 
there, smiled. 

Maria’s voice was heard approaching, the whole garden 
became suddenly alive, and with a sense of wasted time, 
and misused energies, Dinkie and the Snapper crawled 
off their stomachs, and disappeared in the direction of 
the kitchen garden. 


CHAPTER VI. 

“ Ah ! dearest friend, in whom the Gods had joined 
The mildest manners and the bravest mind.” 

It was quite true, as Melons said, that Jem had sought 
his Pillow, his confidante, the typical person with two 
ears and one tongue, whom every man in love hungers 
for, but seldom finds. When he does, her price is above 
whatever may be the most fashionable stone of the mo- 
ment — say chrysoprase, and Jem discovered his in the 
orchard, stretched his long limbs on the grass beside her, 
and remained so silent that presently she peeped over, 
and looked at him. 

‘ ‘ What has Easter done now f ’ she enquired. 

She had so got that young woman by heart lately 
(through Jem’s reminiscences, and always eloquent, if 
somewhat biased, readings of her character) that to talk 
or think of anything else in his company was almost sac- 
rilegious, and not to be thought of. 

” Nothing.” 

The ball of scarlet silk slipped from her knee ; he picked 
it up and gave it back to her with that gentleness which 
she had always noted in him, and there is nothing more 
significant of a man’s character than the way in which 
he takes from, or gives anything to, a woman. Hugon 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


51 


smiled and a dimple showed in one pale cheek, as though 
the joy of life in retreating had left a single landmark un- 
touched to show what once had been, and under favour- 
able conditions might be again, while into her eyes, by 
almost imperceptible degrees, the color was coming back, 
even as the green will steal timidly over the burned and 
blackened hill-side, for Nature is ever repairing man’s 
ravages, if you will only leave everything to her. When 
Hugon’s eyes met yours, you became aware that they 
had somehow got the right focus of life, for some eyes 
look past, over, and to the side of you, others straight 
through to your very soul, and if you are truly wise, you 
would rather be severely judged by such eyes than praised 
by those of a fool. 

“He is very good-looking,” said Jem, following his 
own sequence of ideas. 

“ Very. He has du charme, du charme, et toujours dtt 
charme. And he has evidently been used to the best — 
and therefore the worst — society in the world.” 

“It is not so much what he says, as what he doesn’t 
say,” went on Jem, handsomely, “ that makes him inter- 
esting, like a book, you know, that is good or bad 
according to the power of selection possessed by the 
writer. It only comes out by accident that he has done 
pretty well everything, and knows everybody worth 
knowing ’ ’ 

“ Query,” said Hugon, drily, “ why does he linger at 
Penroses ? ’ ’ 

Jem beamed gloriously — all over. 

“It isn’t Easter,” he said. “She sits upon me, of 
course, but, bless you, it don’t mean anything ! Now, 
Strokolf she positively hates, and he knows it !’ ’ 

“ Trop de zele” murmured Hugon to herself. 

“And he’ll be off directly,” said Jem, with great 
cheerfulness. “The whole frisky lot is established at 
Fitzwalters, and any day Hawkhurst may find out he’s 
here — ^gudgeon-fishing, ’ ’ added J em, smiling. ‘ ‘ Are you 
quite sure it isn’t youf because, away from Easter, you 
know, you’re the most attractive woman I ever saw.” 

It was true. The life-spark once more shone through 
a body that had long been unresponsive as a waxen image 
to human emotions, and that highest beauty of all which 


52 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


is often denied to the face on which the dew of youth and 
color lies — the beauty of expression — had belonged to 
Hugon all her life. 

“Thank you, Jem,” she said, and if you can’t call a 
man by his Christian name when he has been letting day- 
light into all the chambers of his soul to you for a whole 
week, why, then you never will, that’s all. 

“And you’re such a good sort. Easter wouldn’t have 
got you down here if you hadn’t been.” 

“ I don’t know. Most of us are more or less the sport 
of chance in the objects that interest us, or that we love. 
Take a toy out of a child’s hand, it weeps — but if you 
replace it with another, the child is happy. The interest 
or superabundant affection, or whatever else you may call 
it that must be used up, is satisfied, the means do not 
signify in the least. And Easter was homesick, so turned 
to me.” 

She half put out her hand as if to touch the nape of 
his neck, upon which his close-cut curling hair grew in 
that crinkled point which one never sees in a man who is 
not nice, and clean, and mostly what a woman loves. 

“Only you’re so awfully rough on men,” said Jem, 
wheeling round to look at her, “or perhaps it’s because 
you like one man so much, you hate them in the lump. 
Lots of women do.” 

''Like'' she said, under her breath, her face changed 
swiftly, terribly, and she covered it with her hands. 

“ I wish,” he said, “ you’d tell me the story of your 
life — and trust me.” 

She took her hands down, and in pity he looked away 
from what he saw. 

“ After all,” she said, presently, “what does it amount 
to, all the heaped-up agony, the cries of souls in pain of 
the whole world ? At the worst it is only one life, one 
suffering — all the world can give no more than that — one 
houseless or well-stalled soul, its satisfaction or its hunger 
— and in fact you and I, or you and Hodge, represent 
the whole gamut of human suffering. And when I hear 
a man is dead I envy him — he has got his dying over — 
ours is to come, and the longer you put it off the worse 
it is.” 

“We must die,” says Jem, in strongly objecting tones, 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


53 


‘ ‘ but let us live first. And if our fears, and terrors, and 
sufferings are looked into, what are they ? A dread of 
Death to which we are predestined, which is our one big 
payment for the countless pleasures of life ; the fear of 
losing our money — or not getting enough — of dis- 
honour, of the condemnation of our friends, who are 
probably committing worse sins than any we have done, 
and die in the act of judging us. Then there is the loss 
of those you love by Death, preordained also, for you 
always knew that they were only lent to you for a time. 
And it seems to me that we are brought up wrongly, as 
if death were not, when we should be taught that we are 
set as on a great battlefield, full indeed, but in which at 
each moment a saddle is emptied, in which every brow 
has the mark of Death upon it, though we cannot see it 
till a name is called, and then the light flares out, and 
the man is gone.” 

Hugon looked down in a strange, absorbed way at her 
scarred hands. She was thinking that sometimes the life 
goes out slowly, slowly when it does not want to go. . . . 

“And I would teach a child,” went on Jem, “from 
his birth, not to shrink away from and weep over death. 
It is the surroundings of death, not death itself, that is 
horrible. What ! when the new-born soul is bursting 
into life, when with it all is movement and activity, for 
us to be weeping for it, and sorrowing intensely over its 
exultant freedom ? Our mourning is a hopeless denial 
of our faith. Do we weep to see a rose fall and die ? 
Yet it is death — only it is nature, you say — and is not 
our death nature ? The very eagerness with which we 
forget shows how unnatural such mourning and misery 
are to us who survive. God meant all His families to be 
happy,” concluded Jem, looking rather ashamed of his 
peroration, ‘ ‘ and if we must suffer occasionally, there is 
only one thing that hurts permanently, and won’t heal, 
and that’s sin. Not merely dreamed of or attempted, 
but committed — it’s the only thing that really Mis — if 
repentance or reparation are too late.” 

“It is too late,” she whispered, but he did not hear ; 
her face was grey, but he did not see it. In the distance, 
and on the higher ground of the garden, he could just 
see the heads of Basil and Easter passing each other at 

5 * 


54 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


Stately distances in their game, and the phenomenon 
puzzled him. 

“That’s odd,” he said, uneasily. “I wonder what 
they are talking about ?’ ’ 

‘ ‘ I don’ t hear them shouting, and they never get near 
enough to converse. Where are you going ?’ ’ 

“To — to see which is winning.” 

“Jem, you’re a fool ! To have ranged yourself in this* 
short space of time under the heading of the toujours 
perdrix point of view is an imbecility incredible in the 
man of the world that you ought to be.” 

“ ‘ For round the world the blade has been 
To see whatever could be seen, 

Returning from his finished tour, 

Grown ten times duller than before !’ 

quoted Jem, laughing. 

‘ ‘ Exactly. A man in love is always dull. That is 
why Basil remains delightful.” 

“You seem very fond of him,” said Jem, grudgingly, 
“and to have a great deal in common.” 

“We have, only it’s sometimes hard,” she went on 
with apparent irrelevance, ‘ ‘ to distinguish between the 
purity that nobly steps down to vice and the easy virtue 
that makes the sin of a sinner a light thing to one — in- 
deed it’s almost impossible to know where toleration 
ceases to be a Christian virtue, and a base subservience 
to circumstance steps in. In my limited way I suppose 
I’m as wicked for a woman as Basil is for a man.” 

Jem’s steadfast eyes met hers full. 

“Why do you say these things?” he said, coldly. 

“ They are not worthy of you.” 

His tone hurt her, tears rose to her eyes, and through 
them looked, for a moment, a hungry soul, that starved 
in the midst of plenty. Jem’s heart smote him, for he 
had old-fashioned ideas about women, and thought they 
were meant to be happy, and that it was a man’s duty 
and pleasure to try and make them so. 

“I’m a brute,” he said, “to forget the old precept, 

‘ Speak gently,’ and yet,” he went on penitently, “it is 
easy enough, if you only think of it, to spare the unkind 
word — if you’ll just remember those you have lost, whom 


A xMAN OF TO-DAY. 


55 


you would give the world to have back, and be kinder 
to, then you won’t repeat your mistake; but to those/ 
who are left, speak gently. They will have many sorrows 
to bear — especially the young — and one needn’t add to 
them.” 

The thought ran through her mind of how difficult it 
would be for a woman to do ill with such a man as this 
always beside her. 

“Jem,” she said, “I wish I had been your sister. I 
should have been proud of you.” 

“Thpk you,” he said, then added, “Don’t talk to 
Easter in this way. She is so young, you know — and so 
happy. And, no matter what the past has been, from 
prince to peasant, we have all a future, and we can try to 
live the best that is in us — not taught, not reflected — but 
born in us — overcoming the evil — struggling up inces- 
santly to the light — and so we can’t go far wrong, can 
we ?’ ’ he added, cheerily. 

But Hugon sat rigid and made no reply. 

“You’ll think I’m turning into a Pote,'^ said Jem, 
“but I’ve often thought a human life is just like one of 
those loosely-tied bunches of flowers and waving grasses, 
meadow sweet, you know, and so on, that please us so 
much more than the tightly-packed cluster of hot-house 
blooms. You see, the other is weed and flower — flower 
and weed — that’s just how they grow when Nature is 
her own bouquet-maker, and it’s the same with human 
nature, the faults set oflf the virtues, and vice versd. 
There is a weak spot in the strongest and noblest char- 
acter, as there is one intrinsic bit of goodness in the 
vilest, and there is no such thing as a wholly good or 
wholly bad man or woman, or human nature would be 
extinct as the dodo.” 

Hugon did not seem to hear him ; she was thinking 
hard and deep. Presently she said, ‘ ‘ Do you think one 
is justified in slaying a body to save one’s soul alive?” 

“ Not if there is any other way out of it.” 

“ There was no other way.” 

“My God!” cried Jem in a strong, moved voice. 

‘ ‘ What have you done ?’ ’ 

She made a gesture as of one who brushes aside a fly. 

“ Nothing,” she said. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


56 


CHAPTER VII. 

“ For they can conquer who believe they can.” 

They were off at last, Tom and Maria sitting up in 
state before, Hugon and Easter occupying ignominiously 
enough behind, the seats intended for grooms in the mail 
phaeton, bound for the Hangingshaw, and pursued by 
the good wishes of the left-behinds of the family, headed 
by Dinkie, whose final remark, as applied to Easter, was 
^derstood to be “ Dossy !’ ’ 

i Now, one may have some little secret fount of happi- 
' ness within that will make one happy sitting in a ditch in 
a snow storm, and some teasing grievance that makes 
life unsupportable under the most outwardly favourable 
conditions/ and Easter was not enjoying herself at all as 
she took the road to that establishment, all swept and 
garnished to receive her, to which, in cold blood, she 
was expected in the course of nature to remove. To 
marry the first real man who proposes to you — to be 
blessed and riced — and installed with keys as head upper- 
servant — O ! the deadly dulness of it all, without a spark 
of originality or devilry in the whole programme ! ^ 

Tom, too, was irritable (after the manner of fkthers 
and husbands), and crushed Maria’s observations, which 
were well-meant, if devoid of humour, and Tom should 
have reflected that humour is a two-edged weapon, out of 
place in the respected mother of a large family. 

Hugon was silent, but observed how the horses’ swift 
feet bore them ever towards scenery that grew more and 
more precipitous and beautiful, so that at one point they 
went for three miles along a path barely wide enough for 
their carriage wheels, one side bordered by rhododendron 
bushes that, in season, were a blaze of white, and mauve, 
and vivid rose color, on the other by a steep descent that 
fell sheer away to a valley, its sides clothed with climb- 
ing trees, through which the sunlight struggled, playing 
enchantingly on the boles and mossy green carpet below. 
Only to just think of what these miles of bloom must be 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


57 


in clue season, too much beauty surely for human eye to 
contain ! 

They came at last, drawing ever nearer and nearer to 
the sea, to great wrought-iron gates, and saw beyond a 
lofty archway a grey old pile nestling at the foot of a 
cliff, and on the doorstep belonging thereto Jem Burg- 
hersh, waiting to receive them. 

“Jem,” said Easter, forgetting her ill-humour as he 
lifted her, a mere featherweight, to the ground, ‘ ‘ how 
you have grown, and how muck cleaner we both are 
than when we last adorned this doorstep !’ ’ 

He did not see Hugon ; it was a servant who assisted 
her down, and following the others, she stepped alone 
through the arched doorway, on the very threshold of 
which she was met by that old-world perfume which 
clings to some beautiful old houses which have been 
dwelt in by generation after generation of gently-born 
and gently-nurtured men and women ; is it not permis- 
sible to think that their good spirits, their gracious influ- 
ences, yet linger in the air, giving an atmosphere that 
the newly-built, heavily-stocked house of riches alone 
can never by any possibility acquire ? 

The very servants add their own sober note to the 
harmony of the whole, and you feel, and know, that nor 
brains nor education, nor riches in a low-born man, can 
make up for those centuries of gentle breeding and thou- 
sand associations of entourage that make the best sort of 
Englishman what he is. 

“ A place to live in, to die in, to be good in,” thought 
Hugon, as they passed through the ante-rooms that led 
to a vast apartment ceiled and floored with blackest oak, 
its crimson walls almost entirely panelled with priceless 
pictures, broken here and there by treasure-filled cabi- 
nets, with great windows looking out on different scenes 
of loveliness, and everywhere flowers — flowers in bowls, 
in great cloisonne jars, in the fire-places~an interior 
so exquisite that Hugon moved through it as in an 
enchanted dream. 

Some one had placed an open work-box by a chair 
that looked like a throne by the hearth, and at which 
Easter did not even glance, but Hugon’ s glance embraced 
everything. In one illuminated moment she saw Easter 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


58 

sitting there, Jem Burghersh’s adored wife, and herself 
as the poor governess, toiling for a crust of bread, cursed 
by the Furies, and for ever with no ownership in self, but 
only the blind sport of Fate. A burning sense of the 
injustice of life, of heaven, ay, and a deeper hurt than 
these, but newly planted there, pierced her very soul, 
and hearing Basil’s voice, who had just arrived, she 
turned blindly, and stumbled out on to the terrace alone. 

“ O, what hills are yon, yon pleasant hills, 

That the sun shines sweetly on ?” 

“ O, yon are the hills o’ heaven,” he said, 

“Where you will never win.” 

They rang in her ears, those hopeless words of warn- 
ing — where had she heard them, were they written 
especially for her ? And if so, had she not known it all 
along ? 

Blindly she gazed around her. The Hangingshaw sat 
on a natural plateau with its feet in a forest, backed by a 
terraced cliff, and crowned by the moor, from which van- 
tage ground you might see a slender foam-line that 
marked the breaking of the sea upon the coast, about 
half a dozen miles away as the crow flies. 

She passed the turning to the trout stream, and by a 
winding way beneath trees, climbed upwards to the White 
Pavilion, otherwise known as the Winter Garden, its 
many windows open to the air, but guarded by bright 
awnings, that jealously kept the sun at bay, closing in deep 
coolness, and soft rocking chairs where one might lie and 
draw in the voluptuous scent of many flowers, and dream 
that one had happed on Heaven. 

Behind her she heard ascending voices, and without 
turning, was able to couple them, those of Easter and 
Basil, of Jem and Maria — all out of tune, save Maria’s. 
Presently those of the latter receded, evidently Mrs. Deni- 
son had diverted Jem to the kitchen garden, and an in- 
sane longing suddenly overcame Hugon to follow them. 
Even as she sternly asked herself what this meant, as a 
person sickening for fever is still clear enough in reason 
to recognize his symptoms, Easter ran past her into the 
pavilion, and throwing herself into a rocking chair at a 
distance, began to rock herself as if for a wager. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


59 


Now, rocking is an insidious, fascinating, greedy sort 
of occupation, invented by a nation that works harder 
and “lazes” harder than any other on earth, and you 
hate to be disturbed at it, or spoken to, or even looked 
at, while any attempt to extract an answer from you be- 
gets in your breast an ardent desire to murder that per- 
son, and be let alone ever after. Thus Easter, unused 
to rocking chairs, and in spite of bad temper, began to 
dream as she swayed softly to and fro, finding nothing to 
say when the flowers were having their say so deliciously, 
and being too young to deny herself anything agreeable 
that offered itself, and, lulled by the atmospheric blandish- 
ments of the moment, glided sweetly and gradually into 
the ineffable happiness of sleep. 

Hugon had vanished. When the last tap of Easter’s 
little foot ceased, and her curly, black eyelashes were 
sealed to her cheek, Basil took the nearest chair, leaned 
his elbow on his knee, and quietly studied her. 

For a long while he perused the little face, whose tints 
were not to be matched by a flower, there, asking him- 
self whose was the fault, hers or his, that the attraction 
was not made permanent, that at Fairmile had so power- 
fully drawn him towards her ? Basil knew himself thor- 
oughly ; what he could do, and what he could not, and 
had no intention of giving himself a chance of folly — 
though probably no man on earth more fully shared those 
opinions of the ancients as to Beauty being “a delightful 
prejudice,” “ a privilege of Nature” . . . “better than 
all the letters of recommendation in the world” . . . 
“ nothing that was more grateful” . . . en revanche 

hen-pecked Socrates (you may be sure he deserved his 
pecking) calls it “a short-lived tyranny;” dry Theo- 
phrastus ‘ ‘ a silent cheat, ’ ’ while another points sadly to 
it as “ a solitary kingdom.” Whatever it might be, here 
it did not move him — nor had Easter power to make his 
heart go one beat the faster for excess of her cruelty, or 
kindness, or both. 

Perhaps the girl’s coldness had made his — that if he 
could have seen her a trembling, loving creature, whose 
life depended on his smile, he would have grown warm, 
at least for a time, but the touch had been withheld, and 
as yet the vital selfishness of love had not stirred him. 


6o 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


She was outside his life and personality; she had not 
hurt him, or pleased him, and a woman must hurt a 
man deeply, cut into the very quick of him, before she 
leaves her mark for life and after upon him. It is im- 
possible to give the highest pleasure where one has not 
inflicted the keenest suffering, and the gospel of love is 
nearly always the gospel of pain. 

Yet, being a man, Basil would have preferred her in- 
difference not to be as genuine as his. A man hates his 
little privileges to be intruded on, and if he lives by bread 
alone, a woman may not live at all — save by his favour. 

Yet to Jem, who presently peeped in, there could be 
no more delectable sight on earth than that of Easter 
sound asleep, and Basil sitting like a handsome statue of 
melancholy, looking sadly down at the tesselated pave- 
ment, and longing ardently for a smoke. Fitzwalters had 
expected him long enough — he would go thither to- 
morrow. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

“ What dupes we are of our desires. . . . Destiny has two ways of 
crushing us — by refusing our wishes, and fulfilling them. But he 
who only wills what God wills, escapes both catastrophes. All things 
work together for his good.” — Amiel. 

The reaping of Squire Hussey’s ten-acre field of wheat 
had drawn all the young people out of Penroses, and now, 
with Jem, and Daddy, and Reggy, and half a score more 
swains in attendance, Easter’s white parasol was bobbing 
cheerfully along the lanes, the rest of the contingent tail- 
ing in a noisy and rabble rout behind her. 

Hugon, left behind, like most unwanted things, was not 
missed at all, when on descending the steep path at the 
back of the Abbey, that ended in pastures intersected by 
a trout stream, she stood stock-still to listen to the rich, 
soft-toned bells, golden-voiced legacy of those monks who 
knew how to gather most pleasant things around them, 
at that moment striking the hour. Delicious bells were 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


6i 


they — from their single deep note as of solemn warning, 
to the hupying, tumultuous peal that seemed to fall riot- 
ing over itself for joy, and clashing and widening till the 
whole town was full of those echoes — that yet, for all 
their exultation, breathed a sense of peace and reverence 
into the quiet air. And yet I never heard that Rokehorne 
was celebrated for its virtue — only for rack-punch ; while 
the monks — ^well, when they gave up the pleasures of 
love, they merely shifted the seat of emotions, substi- 
tuting another in its place, and perhaps were right, since 
love is an illusive thing in a man’s life, while his dinner 
mostly comes every day. 

The trout stream, like most shallow things, was lovely, 
a veritable flash of living water, showing light within light, 
more glorious than the facets of any earthly diamonds, as 
it swirled over swaying weeds that looked like flowers in 
its translucent depths, spreading out their beauties to the 
water’s embrace, as their earthly sisters to the sun, as if 
they loved it, and apparently Basil loved it too, as he lay, 
face downward, under the scanty shade of one of those 
trees that persistently haunt the stream, like lovers the 
steps of their lady. Indeed it was one of the greatest 
contradictions of this veiy twentieth century young man, 
that fishing should be his favourite sport — an odd taste 
surely, since it required inexhaustible patience, self-con- 
trol, a serene love of his own company, and every quality, 
in short, that hot young blood usually has not. 

He was congratulating himself on having escaped the 
observation of Easter and her merry men, when Hugon 
came softly and stood behind him. 

‘ ‘ How goes it with thee, O ! thou fisher of women ?’ ’ 
she said. 

He looked up, and did not seem to mind her intrusion 
on his thoughts. He had, indeed, remarked at an early 
period of their acquaintance that when talking to her he 
always felt he had a bowing acquaintance with the devil, 
and indeed their conversation was often deficient in 
clothes, each answering more to the idea that was in the 
mind of the other than to the language in which either 
disguised it. 

“ I am growing accomplished in country lore,” said 
Hugon, as she sat down beside him. ” I have discovered 

6 


62 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


that the crane points out the right time for sowing, the 
kite for sheep-shearing, and the swallows the exact hour 
we should put on our summer clothes ! Are you con- 
sulting the fish as to when you shall set out for Fitz- 
walters?” 

Basil laughed. His voice was delightful, and if indeed 
it revealed his character, then his mind was to him a 
kingdom, for by the inflections of a man’s voice shall ye 
know him — yea, and his friends also. He seemed in no 
hurry to talk — perhaps he was waiting till a local Chloe 
and Strephon, undeterred by the heat, or possibly in- 
spired by it, had passed along the footpath, with all that 
noise and playful violence absolutely indispensable to 
courtship in the country. Even an arm cannot in rural 
places slip noiselessly round a waist — that waist must be 
taken by assault and battery, or it is not worth having, 
and in fact the more horse-play there is, the more love, 
and whispered love- vows are things unregistered and 
unknown. When Strephon tries to kiss Chloe, she 
fetches him a mighty blow with her elbow that sends 
him staggering, murmuring, “Gul’long do!” when she 
yields up a chaste salute, she first batters his hat in, and 
It is not until they have knocked each other black and 
blue that they arrive at a nice comprehension of each 
other’s feelings, and fully enjoy the sweets of the tender 
passion. 

” If only one could feel like that I” said Basil, lan- 
guidly, as he rolled over on the hot grass and looked into 
the water for the shadows — no more — that the lazy fish 
now and then projected among the flower grasses. 

“Console yourself,” she said, tartly, “for at the rate 
you have lived, your second childhood wall soon arrive, 
and you will once more enjoy yourself, if you have for- 
gotten all you know.” 

“Only one can’t,” said Basil ; “one might, if all the 
books and newspapers in the world were destroyed, and 
no new ones written, but that infernal printer’s ink 
splashes itself over everything, and the whole earth is one 
vast sounding board, echoing with all that it is possible 
for any dead or living man to say or think. The world 
wants to be swept clean of voices for awhile, and it would 
do each of us good to obliterate his own personality and 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 63 

become a mere nameless atom m the great scheme of 
creation ’ ’ 

“Exit Prince Strokoflf— enter Adam,” said Hugon, 
sceptically ; ‘ ‘ your world has been well warmed for you, 
mon amiy and on a desert island you would be out of 
drawing.” 

“ I don’t stand out for the island,” said Basil, “but I 
say that the individualism which makes all creation go 
round self, and stop where we stop, is our curse. We 
show our faces at a window and think the whole universe 
comes out to look at us, and stops till we go in again ; we 
paint our wretched Ego in great letters across God’s sky, 
we search for it scrawled in hieroglyphics on the very 
stones at our feet, the very flowers by the wayside, and 

the pebbles by the sea-shore ” he paused abruptly to 

gaze down at a trout’s shadow, as if it interested him 
more than his subject. 

“ And God,” said Hugon below her breath, “ what is 
He doing — should we be looking in the emptiness of our 
own faces, if we could see His 9 If there be a future, 
why are we not given some encouragement ? It is like a 
school in which no marks are given, where all our efforts 
are lost, or, if recognized, attributed to false motives, 
and we come at last to a base acquiescence in circum- 
stances, instead of reaching by sustained and independent 
upward struggle the height upon which our hopes are set. 
Or the world is an ants’ nest with all of us hurrying one 
over one — a hive of drones in which the queen for whom 
we work is for ever invisible — and from whom no message 
of praise ever comes ! ‘ Give us a sign,’ we cry, but 

there is no sign. We blame those who shirk work — who 
will not stoop to pick up the pins that lie in their path, 
but are not these the truly, only wise who have eyes to 
see the useless hurly burly, and how it ends nowhere 
and in nothing? Like good housewives, we begin by 
sewing hooks on our curtains, and gradually progress to 
safety pins, then we take to merely skewering them up, 
and find they do almost as well, and nobody sees the differ- 
ence — it is only we who know how hopelessly we have 
fallen short. And so,” she broke off with a mirthless 
laugh, “at last one gives up trying to be what one meant 
to be. It is only by a supreme effort even that, when 


64 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


our grand ones die, we are able to keep the second-rate 
ones from climbing up, and filling their places. There 
are those who persuade the world they are great, who 
dazzle by words, and kindle by their imaginations a 
flame that very closely resembles the feu sacri, who 
simulate with the wind of their voices the thunder of 
those mighty voices that roll down the centuries unsi- 
lenced, and it requires courage not to be led away, not 
to be deceived — to hold to your own beliefs through, and 
in spite of, everything. ’ ’ 

Basil nodded, propping up his head on his hands. He 
was thinking what a lot of words women had for every- 
thing, and men only two or three. 

‘ ‘ I suppose you’ 11 often come and stop with them at 
the Hangingshaw ?” he said. “ I never saw any fellow’s 
future laid out in clearer lines than Burghersh’s seems to 
be — something like a geometrical flower-bed, you know 
— almost impossible to go wrong, I should say.” 

“I have always wanted to know,” said Hugon, “do 
you mind telling me ? Why you fell in love with Easter 
at a distance, and out of love with her when you were 
near ?’ ’ 

Basil tilted his straw hat to the back of his head, and 
seemed to reflect. 

“O! you Russians!” burst out Hugon, with great 
contempt, “your capacity for reflection is illimitable, 
your power for action — nil.” 

His face changed to the stern resolved one of a man 
who can think seriously ; ay, and act too, when occasion 
serves. 

“You can’t unloose the chains of a country in a 
moment,” he said; “first we must be taught — we are 
being taught— to feel, some day we shall do more than 
suffer — some day ” 

He ceased abruptly, and for the first time Hugon 
realized that he was a Russian. The flexible curves of 
his lips fell without effort into rare lines of beauty, and it 
struck Hugon that Byron had such a mouth when he 
was young, and his soul was greater than his desires, 
and there were other lines in Basil’s face, whether carved 
there by his will, or his passions, that no man of char- 
acter is without, though in his case they rather made 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


than marred his face. And as if to leave that soul open 
to all beholders, Basil’s dark clear face was perfectly 
clean-shaven, just like a girl’s, as Dinkie, who rose early 
and toiled late after a moustache that he had not yet 
succeeded in catching, was wont sorrowfully to observe. 

“And you?” he said, abruptly; “what are you, Hu- 
gon ?’ ’ 

“‘A breakage of Civilization.’ I didn’t invent the 
phrase — ^a millionaire did. Clever, wasn’t it? And I 
ought to plump down on my knees, and say my prayers 
every day because I’m at Penroses — but I don’t. Grati- 
tude ! There’s no such thing in Nature, and what 
Nature doesn’t know anything about isn’t much worth 
knowing. She gives and takes freely, she smiles and 
forgets, or how could she do her work properly? To be 
grateful is to basely surrender one’ s independence ; it 
presupposes one’s dependence on another, and Nature 
revolts at such tyranny; we must love for love’s sake, 
cling for mere clinging’ s sake, but we cannot keep alive a 
stale feeling of regard for a kindness that has possibly 
been undone by subsequent unkindnesses. One must 
hate with all one’s heart, if needs be, with no ropes of 
gratitude to hold one back. Be grateful by all means at 
the time for a favour bestowed, but having paid the debt, 
forget it, and let all sense of obligation cease ; don’t let 
it be like the ticket the omnibus conductor gives you in 
exchange for your penny, and another man comes to vis^ 
— it’s such a lot for a penny. It is with those who never 
have done, and never will do anything for us, that we are 
at our very best — our very happiest, and most at ease.” 

“ I like them,” said Basil, abruptly, loudly even, “one 

and all — I like them. Now, those pudding basins ” 

“ Pudding basins f repeated Hugon, in amazement. 
“ Those basins that Mr. Denison fills every day for the 
poor men and women of the town, before he eats a morsel 
of dinner himself,” said Basil, “ they let a whole stream 
of light into his character. He may have his faults, but 
to my mind those pudding basins outweigh them all. ’ ’ 
“And so,” she said, slowly, “you can understand and 
appreciate the humble incident of the poor people’s din- 
ners as well as a character like Nan’s. You keep 
Pouschkin, Gogol, Belinsky, and Tolstoi for your dessert 
^ 6 ^ 


66 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


— ^you are a man of fashion, a man of pleasure, and you 
make yourself happy in a family that to you is bourgeois 
simply, and you have not fallen in love with Easter though 
three parts of you is a slave to woman’s beauty ! Verily, 
O ! Basil Strokoff, you are a man of parts, and a riddle !’ ’ 

She looked at him with all a woman’s real admiration 
for the unknown. Like many another she had taken a 
segment of a man’s life, and thought she knew the whole 
of it . . . for, after all, her experiences were severely 
limited by the mere fact of being a woman. 

But Basil always declined to discuss himself — the sub- 
ject did not interest him, he said ; possibly that is why he 
interested so many other people. The person with the 
swelled head disgusts all who approach him, and is the 
original of the classical saw, that he whom the gods wish 
to destroy, they first deprive of reason. Yet, when next 
Basil spoke, it was on a matter that concerned himself. 

“Why did she not answer my letters?’’ he said. 

“She did.” 

Basil started, and a flush showed through his clear 
brown skin. 

“And did the postman deliver them at the wrong 
address ?” 

“No. I tore them up. I had— heard of you.” 

* ‘ What did she say in them ?’ ’ 

“Ask her.” 

“What did I say in mine?” 

“ Evetything that a man of the world should not to a 
school-girl. You have the most immoderate pen, and 
are the most moderate person in your conduct (at Pen- 
roses) I ever knew. What did you mean by them ?’ ’ 

“ I haven’t the least idea !” 

His voice was alert, his languor had all gone, and over 
his features had spread those bland signs of satisfaction 
that only a man displays thus artlessly, for I don’t think 
that in a woman’s whole range of expression there is any 
equivalent to the male “smirk.” 

’Arry wears it broadly, openly, pasturing on his every 
feature, in the creases of his waistcoat, in the very hang 
of his coat-tails, my Lord Henry in the deepest depths 
of his innermost consciousness, but in both it is the mani- 
festation of gratified vanity, and produced only by the 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 67 

pleasing knowledge that each has achieved a signal 
triumph over one of the opposite sex. 

Now, a woman may be honestly proud or honestly 
angry when a man falls in love with her, but she does 
not “smirk” — she does not know how. And you never 
know where a man’s “ smirk” will end ; it is like a stone 
thrown into a pool — the eddies ripple and widen till some- 
thing more than a man’s egregious vanity, his heart., is 
involved, and often the ‘ ‘ smirk’ ’ is turned to a wry 
mouth in bitter earnest, and he ends by cursing the com- 
placent vanity that has lured him on to ruin. 

Hugon looked at Basil with pungent contempt at the 
pleasure expressed in those close curves of his mouth 
that were so beautiful and enigmatical. Jem would have 
gone mad with joy at the idea of Easter’s having loved 
him if but for an hour, but this man was not thinking of 
her at all, only of her excellent taste. 

“ Let us join the merry-makers,” he said, jumping up 
with great alacrity ; “those shouts can’t be at any very 
great distance surely. I am going to ask Miss Easter 
what she said in those letters.” 


CHAPTER IX. 

The poetry of earth is never dead ; 

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, 

And hide in the cooling trees, a voice will run 
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead.” 

Keats, 

Nan had wreathed Easter’s swart head with honey- 
suckle, and of the pink and yellow of the freaked spikes 
and flowering pollen had made a crown that an Empress 
might have thrust aside all her jewels to wear, and the 
reapers paused in their work to look lingeringly at the 
small oval of the enchanting face, with all that keen ap- 
preciation of beauty which such men usually have, and 
which will not be put oft with makeshifts or airs of fashion 
— good looks must be genuine, or they are not good looks 


68 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


at all in their estimation, and a common man’s summing 
up of a woman is worth the thousand wire-drawn con- 
clusions come to by a raffing. 

What the latter calls spirituelle, charming, and so on 
(I once heard somebody remark that when you can’ t say 
anything else for a woman you call her elegant), the un- 
taught one, knowing the rules of beauty instinctively, 
and finding her wanting, calls in good plain English ♦ 
“ homely,” just as the blindest bat of them all recognises 
and is stirred by the sight of real beauty ; and is not this 
love of loveliness, this spontaneous joy in fresh young 
life, the one scrap of poetry left in us, ever struggling 
after and seeking to realise its ideal ? 

Prone at her feet, and all around her, lay those bold 
invaders of the field, the Norman poppies, whose scarlet 
heraldry mocks with its insolence the sweet English pim- 
pernels, the pink convolvuli, and here, too, were sainfoin 
and blue lucerne, blood-red trefolium, and green white 
clematis, the last of the gay vagabond troop that had 
lovingly waited on the corn’s first green shoot above 
ground to its glorious fall ; they decked him even in his 
dying, for did not they love the grain to which they so 
lavishly gave their beauty, and did not the corn love 
them ? For the corn is the symbol of stern life, and the 
flowers and weeds are the lovely frivolities that make the 
hard reality of existence possible to endure. 

Out have leapt the hares from their hiding-places, with 
a better chance of life than the timid field mice who 
blindly run hither and thither, and the reaping hooks 
have Drought to light nests of helpless young partridges, 
while afar off the great army of little singing birds who 
have had such a glorious innings at that fcunteous table 
look wistfully on at the removal of their feast. They 
have dipped their beaks in the milky juice of the green 
corn, they know accurately its every stage till it has 
hardened into golden grain, they have tasted it all 
through, and now sorrowfully, with sad presage of the 
coming autumn and winter, a shiver runs through their 
slender bodies even in the sunshine, and B6ranger’s lines 
recur involuntarily to the mind, as one watches them 
flutter restlessly from bough to bough. 

All the town seems to have spread itself over the huge 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


69 

field and to find something to do in it, the men to reap, 
the women to bind, the children and old folks to glean, 
the oldest Gammer, the youngest toddler, working side 
by side, being alike in this — to possess just enough 
strength to pick up a handful of wheat ears with which 
to totter home ; the Gammer just going to learn the 
great mystery of all things, the tiny child but freshly 
come from, and still a part of it— at one with Nature and 
with God. 

Into this flood of light and life came Basil and Hugon, 
and made their way into that corner annexed by the 
Penroses contingent, where the fun waxed fast and 
furious, and each ill-used person strove to forget his own 
smarts and scratches by inflicting still deeper ones on his 
neighbour. 

Melons was a sight to behold, so was Nan, the curly 
red mane of her hair floating out behind like a banner, 
and shining in the sun like flame. The boys, old and 
young, Jem included, showing various degrees of injuries, 
Easter alone displaying no disorder, but only change of 
colour as Basil approached, while Daddy Gardner, who, 
like most long-nosed people, could be seen laughing or 
frowning a long way off, scowled down the whole length 
of his nose as they drew near. 

Basil, however, saw only the loveliness of that honey- 
suckled head, and was trying to adjust himself to the 
idea that this scornful young Bacchante had once actually 
written him a love letter. . . . Nay, had even perse- 
vered, and repeated the performance, . . . and it is a 
potent attraction in one who has been invariably cold to 
be secretly discovered going to the other extreme, for a 
man immensely admires in the opposite sex the self- 
control he so seldom cares to practise himself. 

She gave him even colder greeting than usual, but 
there was something new in his face as he looked at her 
— almost as if she were a woman, and not a mere work 
of art warranted to produce satisfaction in the mind of 
every person who approached her, and it angered, and 
made her spring up from the four sheaves of wheat that 
formed her throne, so that down fell her lapful of flowers, 
attracting a tiny child whose hand was almost too small 
to hold the ears of corn it carried, and holding on by 


70 


A MAN OF TO-DAY 


her skirts, it threw them away, stooping eagerly to 
gather up the brighter treasures at its feet. 

Easter smiled, and stroked fondly the sunny curls at 
her knee. 

“And to think,” she said, “that it will grow up into 
a tiresome Peggy or Bobby one of these days !” 

The ebon and fair little head got mixed during the 
process of picking up the spilled flowers, and Jem’s 
expression as he looked at Easter opened a door of hell 
in Hugon’s heart, and frightened her. Most of us are 
capable of heroic deeds en bloc ; it is the meanness of 
detail at which we flinch, and few of us can stand slicing 
to death with the grace and equanimity of a Chinese. 

The reapers had paused for tea, and their voices in the 
soft, incommunicable dialect of Somersetshire rose and 
fell on the air. Some scraps of their conversation floated 
to Basil’s ears and made him smile, and in the midst of 
his preoccupation, he thought what a mistake it was to 
suppose that country bumpkins were fools. 

‘ ‘ Where do you spring from ?’ ’ said Easter in that 
natural way belonging to all the Denisons, and which, in 
Basil’s eyes, constituted their singular charm. 

‘ ‘ Hugon found me meditating on my sins and brought 
me along,” he said, watching her as she put up both 
hands to remove her wreath. “Don’t touch it,” he 
added, so abruptly that his voice was unconsciously mas- 
terful, and she looked at him, the colour wavering in her 
face, but her eyes did not waver. The others had fallen 
away, they were virtually alone. 

‘ ‘ It looks' ridiculous, ’ ’ she said and tried to free her- 
self, while the flash in his eyes told her that for two pins 
he would snatch her hands and hold them behind her 
back. 

Involuntarily she drew a sharp breath — there is not a 
woman alive who does not love to be mastered, but by 
the right man and in the right way — then she tugged at 
the honeysuckle and only tore her hair. 

“Temper again,” said Basil, coolly, “let me do it” — 
and he did. 

The reapers looked on with a keen sense of satisfaction 
at the beauty of the picture made by the pair. The fac- 
tory girls fingering their sham pearl necklaces sighed. 


A MAN OF TO’DAY. 


71 


and pushed away the Lubins with whom they had been 
romping. Jem turned aside, and Daddy fairly snorted 
with disgust, but Nan, drawing near, smiled ... if only 
these two became real friends, she would be utterly happy. 

“Thank you,” said Easter as she turned away. 

It was the first gently-spoken word she had ever given 
him, and he laid the memory of it away with the bit of 
honeysuckle he presently, and quite openly, placed in his 
breast pocket. 


CHAPTER X. 

“ God comes to us without bell.” 

In all Penroses there was only one cool spot, within 
doors or without, and that was known to only two per- 
sons, Dinkie who had originally discovered it, and Nan, 
to whom he had graciously revealed it under strictest 
vows of secrecy, and who, so far, had not divulged it. 
In a large family it does not do to share everything, or 
there is apt to be very little left for yourself, and Nan was 
a dangerous sort of person who always wanted to go 
halves in all pleasures, just as she often refused things she 
liked, in case somebody else liked them more. But self- 
sacrifice is the law of some natures, just as it is never even 
dimly guessed at by others. 

‘ ‘ Whew !’ * said Dinkie, as he locked a door behind 
them, and brother and sister plunged straight down into 
a delicious coldness that was like a deep draught of water 
to a thirsty soul, “ only fancy, if the others found this 
oufcJ Now, don't you go littering the place up with your 
poetry and stuff, because if the Chief should come down 
this evening for a bottle of Madeira, and see anything 
about, there’ll be ructions, and I’ll never trust you again.” 

But Nan had brought nothing but herself — chock full 
of weeds and good intentions as usual, and she sighed as 
she perched herself on one of the portly casks that lined 
in seemingly never-ending perspective Mr. Denison’s 
vast wine cellar, while Dinkie selected another, and 


72 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


thrusting his substantial foot in a boot three sizes too big 
for it through a loop of twine, went vigorously to work 
on one of those interminable fishing nets that were never 
known to catch any fish — or so his flattering brethren 
averred. 

Nan sat with thin legs dangling, and having mopped 
her face with her skirt, looked up through the narrow 
grating, over which an occasional vagrant step in the 
street obscured the sunshine that filtered dustily through 
upon the stone flags below. 

Silence is golden, especially when you are in the habit 
of only being listened to when you have made yourself 
hoarse by shrieking everybody else down ; but too much 
of anything is apt to pall, and Dinkie presently took his 
thoughts off his own rather urgent private affairs and 
looked at Nan. 

“Hullo,” he said, “what’s the matter now? Hatch- 
ing out a new pome ? But look here, ’ ’ he added, warn- 
ingly, ‘ ‘ none of that rot, you know, about an ivory arm, 
a velvet cheek, a marble brow, and a steely eye ; I don’t 
admire richly upholstered females myself, and never knew 
any fellow who did,” he added, with the air of one who 
knew a thing or two, and more on to that. 

“N — o,” said Nan, dejectedly. 

“And I should say,” went on Dinkie, “that there is 
nothing more calculated to give a female writer the jim- 
jams than to see a man reading one of her books and 
grinning. Most females write at the top of their throats, 
just you keep somewhere near your boots, Nan, if you 
want to succeed ; only it’s so jolly difficult for a woman to 
be masculine, and if the humour of a book ain't mascu- 
line — richly masculine — it’s poor stuff, very poor stuff,” 
concluded Dinkie, who never read anybody but Field- 
ing, and whose favourite hero was Tom Jones, while, as a 
real man with no nonsense about him, he respected Bob- 
bie Burns. “And I don’t know what you want to be a 
paper-spoiler for,” continued Dinkie; “nearly all the 
trouble in the world, and half the tragedies, come from 
trying to square the circle, from folks trying to compass 
the impossible, and do work for which they are not fitted ; 
it isn’t \kv^work they hate, it’s only that particular kind 
of work — ^give them something they can do, and they’ll 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


73 


do it well and gladly and be happy. Same with your 
fancies, you want to be a poetess — Melons to be a 

beauty — Bunkulorum to be a Socrates — Easter burns to 
make a fool of Basil — Hugon wants Jem — the Chief tries 
to make Mother punctual — Mother, bless her, for all her 
long seams, and the babies, would like to be a good 
manager — ^and even Cookey has her ambitions and wants 
to be a tall woman, and when she’s out o’ Sundays with 
Joe Stubbs, paws the earth with a stately strut ; whereas 
if you’d only make up your minds to stop, and let other 
people stop, as Nature made you and them, you’d be 
content and comfortable — like me. ’ ’ 

Nan wriggled uneasily on her iron-cooped seat, then 
presently unburdened her pressing sorrow. 

‘ ‘ Melons is in an awful wopse because I — I boned a 
new pair of garters she’d put away — Queen’s garters, you 
know — very grand— — and when she went to look 
for them they were gone. I’d lost one. Then mother’s 
very upset because I wanted a bit of elastic for a catapult 
the other day, and cut a piece out of her best bonnet, 
where it fastens on with a button to her head, you know, 
and when she went to put it on — Oh!” and language 
failed Nan. “It’s because I’ve been so happy lately 
that I’m worse than usual, I s’ pose ” 

‘ ‘ And then you go down on your bones, you know, 
and say your prayers, and eat humble pie, and that’s 
rot,” said her stern young mentor, “while if you kept 
out of scrapes you wouldn’t want to go asking any 
favours of anybody.” 

“No,” said Nan, meekly. “But oh! Dinkie, every 
morning I say to myself, ‘ Now here’s a clean slate, don’t 
you write anything on it that isn’t good but by even- 
ing it’ sail over smudges, and mistakes, and wickedness !” 

Dinkie could not follow her here. He made smudges 
himself sometimes, and rubbed them out quickly and 
forgot them. That is the great thing — to rub them out 
quickly before anybody sees them, and vow you never 
made them at all. Only Nan was always too ashamed 
and sorry to attempt to rub out hers, and so with most 
of us when we are young, we do wrong, we see the 
huge blots, colossal to our eyes, that disfigure the white 
page ; it can never be clean again, we cry in our agony ; 

D 7 


74 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


once defaced, it is defaced for ever, and a storm of reck- 
lessness mingles with our shame and pain, and what mat- 
ters another blot or two more or less ? So we dash in 
others and tell our hearts that we do not care. But time 
goes on ; other writing comes on the page — some good, 
some bad — probably there are even larg£r blots than those 
early ones over which we broke our hearts in despair, but 
if we cover them skilfully, lo ! by degrees you see only 
the writing, and the blemishes are not so very noticeable 
after all — ^and Time, twin-brother with Nature, by degrees 
obliterates them every one. 

“And then,” said Dinkie, who was fond of preaching, 
as we all are, if we can only get any one to listen to us, 
“it’s very funny how you sit down when you’ve been 
particularly bad, and write verses about eternity and all 
that. You don’t copy ’em out of anything, do you?” 
he added, suspiciously. ‘ ‘ Now, that last rhyme — 

‘ Has no strange, beautiful instinct ever 
Strengthened your heart in its fierce endeavour? 

Have you not held back your breath to listen, 

Across your eyes has no earthly glisten * 

seemed to me jolly fine.” 

“As if I’d do anything so mean / But you don’t un- 
derstand, Dinkie,” said poor Nan, secretly overjoyed at 
his approval. 

Dinkie was glad to say he didn’t — and in point of fact 
Dinkie did not understand Nan at all. Every heart has 
its own Niagara, its stormy rush, its whirlpools and black 
depths, but Nan’s capacity for despair was quite phe- 
nomenal, and altogether beyond the comprehension of 
Dinkie. Equally so were those fits of crying and pas- 
sion that were not temper at all, but storms evoked by 
cruelty, injustice, ridicule, and above all by that unap- 
peasable desire to be loved that is the hall-mark of some 
sensitive souls. But alas ! we may earn a bad character 
very early, and on quite insufficient premises, but it is 
one that we carry with us to the grave, even though 
through a lifetime we may have given it the lie. 

“You see, Dinkie,” said Nan, always anxious to ex- 
plain, “ I think a lot about eternity, because p’raps they 
won’t be as hard on me up top as you all are down here.” 

“Oh, that’s nonsense,” said Dinkie, sententiously ; 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


75 


“it don’t require such a lot of trying to stick to your 
garters, and you’re so beastly untidy, Nan, always drop- 
ping to pieces everywhere ; and a person who flops can 
never do any good work, their loose bits all come in the 
way, you know ; you must gird up your loins tight if you 
mean business. And always see that your hat’s of the 
shiniest and the best — everybody can see that — but who’s 
to know what’s inside your cocoanut ? And remember 
that you are received according to your appearance — ^you 
are taken leave of according to your deserts. Doesn’t 
some old buffer say that ‘ slovenliness is a lazy and 
beastly negligence of his own person whereby a man be- 
comes so sordid as to be offensive to those about him ?’ ’’ 
“That’s a crib,’’ said Nan, indignantly, “a mean crib 
from Bunkulorum, whom you pretend to despise so 
much, and / think every tub should stand on its own 
bottom, and I wouldn’t try and sit on Bunkulorum’ s if I 
were you. And you ain’t any too tidy yourself, either ; 
just look at your boots ! Though I s’ pose you can’t 
help having a hoof like an elephant !’’ 

Dinkie coloured violently. The useful size of his feet 
was a sore point with him ; and what member of a big 
family does not know how to get another member of it 
on the raw ? Looking-glasses are superfluous, and you 
need never labour under the smallest doubts as to the 
shape of your nose, the exact size of your mouth, or 
the quality of your skin, when you count your relatives 
by the dozen. 

“Perhaps so. Miss,'* he said, vindictively, “but /don’t 
go to bed with all my clothes on, or appropriate other 
people’ s goods, or dance with rage, or stand on my head 

at unseasonable times, or tell lies ’ ’ 

Nan flushed and winced as at a spear-thrust. 

“I never tell them on my own account,’’ she said, 
“but only to get somebody else out of scrapes — and of 
course I get caught ’’ 

“Of course. Now, I never tell lies myself— it don’t 
pay, and it’s too much trouble. A liar wants such a 

thundering long memory, you know ’’ 

“I’ve often heard you contradict yourself,’’ cried Nan, 
indignation entirely upsetting her pacific intentions. 

‘ ‘ There you go, your lip again, and sitting up on your 


76 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


hind legs preaching to your elders, one would think you 
were one of those children who bring their parents up 
now-a-days — but you don’t bring up me, miss — not 
much !” 

“ But you ain’t always right yourself, Dinkie. Didn’t 
you and Daddy Gardner spend the whole of one night 
seeing each other home, because you were both tight, and 
each of you was firmly convinced that the other could not 
take care of himself? And weren’t you both found 
sitting on the same doorstep, arguing it out at five 
o’ clock in the morning, looking regularly deboshed ?’ ’ 

“ Men can do as they please. Miss,” said Dinkie, with 
great majesty, ” but girls are expected to behaved 

‘ ‘ And nobody expects anything of boys who do 
nothing, and get everything in this world,” said Nan. 
spitefully. ” It takes you two hours to learn a punish- 
ment chapter in the Bible; / can learn it in five 
minutes.” 

Dinkie turned up the whites of his eyes appealingly to 
Heaven. That was the worst of Nan. In the deepest 
depths of her repentance, out would flash that sharp 
rapier, her tongue, and cut and stab friend and foe indif- 
ferently, though the next moment she was weeping over 
and binding up their hurts. 

“And pray,” he said, looking extremely unpleasant, 
“ how about girls who use bad language ? Girls who get 
into a rage, and call another person a ” 

“Oh, stop,” cried Nan, putting both hands before her 
hot face, '' don't repeat it, Dinkie— don’t— I only said it 
because it was the very most awful word I knew, or had 
ever heard of.” 

^ “Yes, it was very bad,” said Dinkie, with the virtuous 
air of one who had never done a swear in his life, and 
was proof against being tempted to. “I often wonder 
what you’re saving up for. With that tongue of yours, 
you’re pretty safe to be murdered by anyone who hap- 
pened to marry you.” 

Nan flushed. 

“ O ! Dinkie,” she said, “ do you think anybody ever 
would?" 

Dinkie grinned, and proceeded with his lecture as 
though it were a labour of love. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


77 


‘‘And then you’re so officious, you know, always 
wanting to be useful and getting in everybody’s way — 
you mean well, of course, but it ain’t dignified, and 
makes you look awful small — only you can’t see it.” 

This also Nan did not contradict, but if she got well 
snubbed for her eager helpfulness, for crediting others 
with noble thoughts and ideas of which they were quite 
innocent, methinks such snubs were more to her soul’s 
health than the cheap triumph of those who have gauged 
human nature all too well and too truly, and who go out 
of their way to find what they expect. 

‘‘And then you’re such a profligate — ^about money, I 
mean,” he added, reflecting that most sinful nouns are 
masculine in gender. ‘‘Why, if you’ve got a shilling, 
you chuck it away, and it will be just the same if you 
ever ^et thick’ uns !” 

It IS astonishing with what ease we find hard words 
with which to flagellate other folks’ sins, and how squeam- 
ishly we select those to characterise our own; how, 
when Dinkie fooled his money away, it was only open- 
handedness, but in Nan it was a horse of quite another 
colour. 

‘‘I’m very extravagant, and I’ve got a dreadful tem- 
per, I know,” began Nan, humbly. 

‘ ‘ And want of temper is want of pluck, ’ ’ quoted Dinkie, 
comfortably. 

‘‘Oh ,” cried Nan in a frenzy, ‘‘ I often wish — I wish 

I were dead !’ ’ 

‘‘No, you don’t ! And your coffin would be sure to 
be a misfit. Or the last trump would sound directly you 
had got comfortably settled, and you’d have to get up 
again — or something.” 

“Y-e-s. But I should like to be laid out properly. 
In something becoming, you know, with some flowers in 
my hands and in my hair.” 

This sudden transition from despair to vanity (one of 
Nan’s strongest characteristics) did not astonish Dinkie ; 
he was used to Nan’s phases, even if he did not under- 
stand them. He used to describe her as a creature of 
moods and tenses — chiefly intense. 

‘‘ If you must wear anything out of the common,” he 
said, with a grin, “ I would suggest a fire-proof garment 

7 * 


78 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


— it might come in hand^. But you ain’t so bad after 
all,” he added, encouragingly; “though you’ll never be 
epitaphed as a ‘godlie, harmless woman,’ you’re very 
forgiving, and that’s something. You can’t remember 
injuries, though its deuced awkward when one has been 
having an awful row with you one minute, to meet you 
with hauteur the next, and be asked what you mean — 
because you’ve forgotten all about it.” 

“ Thank you, Dinkie,” said Nan, grateful for that small 
crumb of praise, and she said it so earnestly that Dinkie 
repented him of pandering to her love of approbation, 
and promptly let her know it. 

“You’re so beastly fond of praise. Nan,” he said, re- 
bukingly ; “ that’s the worst of a female. She wants to 
be praised all along the line, or she’ll die. Only give her 
enough butter, and she’ll black your boots, sit at home 
while you kick up your heels abroad with your step- 
wife, and even cook your dinner for you if you like at 
midnight — just for a word of praise. Now, males don’t 
go hungering round for applause and lick it down, and 
thrive on it, and get downright pretty on it, as a she- 
thing does. Perhaps it ain’t satisfying enongh ” 

“No,” burst out Nan, in spite of herself, “but he’ll 
take a trough-full of flattery and ask for more ! He’ll 
swallow anything — the very grossest you offer. Praise 
is too delicate a dish to set before a ma7i T ’ 

“Well, of all the impudent, disrespectful little devils,” 
began Dinkie, justly enraged, but Nan had got the bit 
between her teeth, and there was no stopping her till she 
had raged through a singularly comprehensive vocabulary 
of abuse, though when she had quite done, and Dinkie’ s 
mind was thoroughly impressed with a villainous photo- 
graph, in which all his blemishes, physical and mental, 
were displayed in high relief, and which he was sure did 
not bear the smallest resemblance to his own distinguished 
and attractive self. Nan drowned herself in tears, and 
passionately entreated him to forgive her, which he flatly 
and not unnaturally altogether declined to do, even re- 
pulsing her damp person with much vigour, when she 
hurled herself upon him. 

“Basil isn’t always throwing nasty things up to me, 
morning, noon, and night!” said Nan, when she had re- 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


79 


treated to her cask, feeling that tears were a degradation, 
when nobody begged you to stop. 

doesn’t know you,” said Dinkie, convincingly, 

” And it’s so nice for somebody not to think you a per- 
fect devil,” said Nan, with a gulp. ” It — it makes you 
one, you know, when everybody says you are. Perhaps 
that’s why I’m not so bad with him as other people,” 
added the child, who already in her gropings after truth 
had discovered memory to be the real stumbling-block to 
happiness of the whole human race. 

‘ ‘ If your conduct, ’ ’ said Dinkie, severely, as he pre- 
pared to depart, “is always to depend upon that of other 
people through life, why, I pity you a little, and your 
family much more. I’m going to play billiards,” he 
added, curtly. Nan’s remarks about a ‘ blob nose’ and an 
upper-lip like a clothes-brush still rankling in his mind ; 
‘ ‘ now, are you coming, or shall I lock you in for a 
couple of hours ?’ ’ 

“You’ll forget all about me,” said Nan. “I’ll let 
you out, and fcep the key.” 

“Very well, only don’t go dropping your vile rhymes 
about borrow and sorrow, kiss and bliss, and all that 
tommy-rot ; remember, if we get bowled out, it’ll be 
your doing, and I’ll never tell you anything again as 
long as you live.” 

Nan accompanied him to the top of the stairs, and let 
him out with great precaution, but he did not speak to 
her at departing, so she returned heavy-hearted to her 
barrel, and producing a startlingly green apple from her 
pocket, actually dared to arraign Providence before 
taking a bite out of it. 

“Ain’t you sorry up there, sometimes,” she said, 
looking reproachfully through the grating as if in search 
of the Final Cause, “to see everything turn out so 
wrong down here, when everything was meant to be so 
right? You must know what I mean to do very well, 
even if I don’t do it, and if you gave me a good mark 
now and then, just to encourage me, I should get on 
ever so much better, and I’d be so grateful, only when- 
ever I try to be extra good. I’m sure to burst out, and 
do something ever so much worse than if I hadn’t tried 


8o 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


at all, so perhaps it’s better not to try, but just be moder- 
ately wicked every day — only why do you let me try, if 
it’s always to be no good ?” 

She took a meditative bite out of the apple, which 
was so virulently sour that it made her eyes water, and 
morally braced her up. Discipline of any kind, even 
from a sour apple, is good for us, and Nan felt pounds 
better as the premonitory pangs ol severe stomach-ache 
set in. 

“Now, Easter and Basil ain’t wicked,” she said, 
doubling herself up in her anguish, “but it’s so easy to 
be good when you’re beautiful — it’s only ugly people 
who have ugly feelings — like me.” 

A light broke over the child’s face, and changed its 
mien as when the sun with its effulgence strikes into 
sudden glory some distant, lack-lustre field of grain, 
transmuting it to gold. Easter was the religion of this 
young life ; for all that she lacked, all that in her intense 
love of the beautiful she would have liked to find in her- 
self, she found in Easter, and worshipped accordingly. 
And one other person she worshipped — Basil — possibly 
for much the same reasons. And even when her stomach- 
ache was gone, she did not feel dull, for she liked to be 
alone with her soul, which she had not yet overlaid with 
swaddlings of millinery, of intrigue, of excitement, and 
the thousand vices to which grown-up people take like 
ducks to water. Probably when she grew older, she 
would hate her soul, and flee from it as a ghost, for is 
not the great secret of our restlessness, of the ache of 
life, to be found in our terror of being brought face to 
face with that alter ego which shows so clearly to us its 
baser one, which we cannot, will not, alter ? 

In the midst of Nan’s soul-searchings, always earnest, 
and usually lamentable in results, came a ring overhead 
at the front-door bell. Basil always rang when he came 
— it could be no one else, and Nan’s heart leaped, and 
she danced up and down in the dusty motes ; had he 
looked down, he must have seen her. 

Sweet William, as usual, lingered, and an idea flashed 
through Nan’s mind. Darting up the stairs, she unlocked 
the door, and suddenly appeared before Basil, who smiled 
down at the little eager face all alive with intelligence in 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


8i 


its tangle of bright hair, and laughed when she said, in a 
whisper, drawing him in, — 

“I’m down in the cellar, Basil. Will you come too?” 

He nodded, and she led him carefully through the pas- 
sage into the darkness. Then, having shut the front door 
and guided him down, dusted the top of a cask with her 
skirt, and spreading out her by no means clean pocket- 
handkerchief upon it, begged him, in a tone of the great- 
est hospitality, to be seated. 

When he had done so, a lovely pink colour came into 
Nan’s cheeks, and looking at him, so manly and so kind, 
she felt her heart yearn over him. It is astonishing how 
soon a woman-child learns this trick of yearning over her 
brother, her doll, her kitten — ^anything that fills the clam- 
orous want in her soul. A man may do a yearn occa- 
sionally, but it is mostly against the grain, and he is always 
ashamed of it afterwards, and extremely shy of doing it 
again. A woman thrives on it ; in fact, the more she 
does, the more she can do — whereas she had far better 
smash some crockery, or set to work to dig out a back 
garden, than indulge in so costly a luxury. 

“ How cool you are here. Nan,” he said, “ and what a 
fine cellar the Chief has, ’ ’ he added, looking down those 
dim arcades in whose locked recesses were hidden those 
choice wines scarcely to be matched, certainly not to be 
beaten, in the county. 

“Yes. You won’t mind stopping a little bit with me, 
will you, Basil?” she said, timidly, “or hiding behind a 
barrel if the Chief should come down ? because he doesn’t 
know Dinkie’s got a key — and if he caught us, there 
would be a row.” 

“I’ll hide,” he said. “ Dear little girl,” he added, 
heartily, “ I always enjoy a talk with you. What do you 
do down here all by yourself?” 

“ Oh, I think, you know.” 

“ And what do you think about?” 

She had climbed up to an adjacent barrel, and was 
gazing at him with intensest appreciation. He was her 
hero — not like Jem, a mere hourly, every-day article of 
use like herself, but something out of a book, not to be 
judged by any common standard, or loved in any way, 
and she never looked at him without feeling a blessing. 

/ 


82 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


She paused a while before she said, — 

“ O, about all sorts of things. Souls, you know, and 
dead people. Basil,” she added, earnestly, “can you 
tell me why people look so beautiful and good when 
they’re dead — when the spirit is gone, and so wicked and 
tired and cross when they’re alive, and the soul is some- 
where inside them? It beats me. A flower doesn’t 
behave like that. All its beauty — but not its scent, which 
is its memory, you know — ^goes when it dies. And I’ve 
often thought,” she added, wistfully (for she had got into 
the habit of saying things to Basil, things which she 
never said to anybody else, perhaps because no one would 
listen to them), “ that people’s bodies should be able to 
show the soul shining through — like a tulip, you know, 
or a buttercup when you hold it up to the light. O, 
they’re both such glories ! But I’ve come to the conclu- 
sion that bodies and souls don’t work properly together, 
but nearly always say different things. Mine do. Don’t 
yours, too, sometimes?” 

Basil nodded. He thought Nan had hit the right nail 
on the head, as she nearly always did. Mechanically he 
felt in his breast-pocket for his cigarette case, and unob- 
served by Nan in her absorption, lit his cigarette, as he 
signed encouragingly to her to proceed. 

“And it’s a wonderful thing, Basil,” she went on, 
dreamily, “that one flower should be so sweet, and 
another look just as sweet, and have no scent at all. 
That you and Easter should be so beautiful and me so 
ugly seems as if God had His favourites, somehow, 
doesn’t it?” 

“Yes, but I’m not one of them, child.” 

But Nan knew better. Nan, whose whole being went 
out in perception, found beauty everywhere, even in ugly 
human beings where loveliness was not — for the recogni- 
tion of it was in herself, and turn where she would, it 
went with her. Upon whatsoever she looked she saw 
the good, not the evil — and lo ! the dry rock gushed, 
and the one speck of goodness in that soul or thing ap- 
peared — because she believed it- to be there. And if to 
her was given to see the suffering soul, to know what 
other people only dimly guessed, to read signs of char- 
acter intuitively, who shall say that such power was a 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


S3 

blessing, for is it not usually the lot of those who pour 
balm into other folks’ wounds to go themselves untended 
when most utterly in need of cherishing ? 

She was looking eagerly upwards through the grating, 
and in this little figure, straining as it were towards the 
dusty light, there was to this man of the world, who 
had known and forgotten so much, something infinitely 
moving, and even tragic. 

This child, always seeking, never finding, always in 
trouble, more or less misunderstood, a torment to her 
mother, a riddle to those she most longed to please, had 
from the first unriddled herself into something beautiful 
to Basil, perchance as finding in her those same ideals 
that had haunted his youth, and over paths to which he 
had lost the route, she had led him back — if but for an 
hour and day, and made him a better man. 

A Russian, for all his English looks, to the core, 
dreamy, subtle, ardent, religious, and, above all things, 
receptive, he met and clasped hands with this child on 
many points, but most of all in her despair. Only hers 
was passionately alive, his of that unutterable melancholy 
which, with the stifled groans of millions of human creat- 
ures too courageous to cry out, is breathed into the still 
air, and over the limitless plains and steppes so unutter- 
ably dear and beautiful to the Muscovite soul. 

His bent of mind was fatalistic, his religion that of sac- 
rifice and pain, he was pessimist to his finger tips, but 
outwardly he had not a care, and wore the garment of 
life so carelessly and well that none took him for anything 
but what he appeared — ^a typical Man of To-day. 

But long ago Nan’s eyes had pierced the disguise of a 
mere man of fashion, and what she found beneath the 
veil she loved, and, in her own way, understood. For 
dumbly, gropingly. Nan touched the human springs of 
life, of the heart, even while she left her own bare and 
undefended to the careless thrusts of an ignorant world. 

“ Poor Nan !” he said, gently, “your powerful imagi- 
nation will never let you see people as they really are — 
only as you wish them to be — and you will suffer horribly 
before you’ve done. Try and think of yourself as better 
and the rest of us as worse than you suppose us to be.” 

“Oh, you don’t know how bad I am,” said Nan, 


84 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


mournfully. “Just you ask Dinkie ! And if you only 
heard the words I use “ 

“And some day,“ said Basil, blowing rings of smoke 
upwards, “you’ll look back, and try as you will, you 
won’t be able to recall even an echo of what you feel 
now. But you won’t be the same Nan,’’ he added, re- 
gretfully, “young, earnest, and believing implicitly in 
even a rascal like me. ’ ’ 

“You mustn’t talk like that,’’ she said, looking deeply 
pained. “If you are not good, then no one is, or I 
don’t want them to be, either.” 

“Nan!” exclaimed Basil, quickly, the blood showing 
through his brown skin, “you make a great mistake 
about me; I am a regular bad lot. If there is ever any 
real question of choosing between good and evil, I invari- 
ably choose the evil. If I want a thing” — he paused — 
“really want, I mean, not merely pretend to (and it’s 
wonderful how often disinclination wears the garb of 
virtue), I will have it, even though I destroy it the next 
minute.” 

His eyes flashed with an unholy light, his expression 
altered entirely, he did not look good at all, even to this 
child’s eyes, and her heart sank. 

“ I know you are very wilful, Basil,” she said, sadly. 

“No. Unprincipled. I do things that your sister’s 
lover, Burghersh, could never think of doing. The mere 
thinking of them proves them wrong. And when the 
turning point of life comes, I shall take the wrong one. 
It is such a mistake to think a man will be any different, 
just because you wish it — what he was, he will be ; habit 
IS stronger than enthusiasm with selfish people like me. 
I’m glad you brought me down here,” he added, 
abruptly, then paused, tormented by Easter. He was 
in the mood when a man does not know what he wants, 
and is restless and dissatisfied accordingly. Confound 
that honeysuckle wreath, he could see and smell it now 
as Easter bent her head before him, and he disengaged 
it with swift, firm touches, like a man used to assisting at 
a woman’s toilette. Only there were very few women of 
his acquaintance with whose locks he would have dared 
to meddle. And somehow her submission had mocked 
him, it was a rebel at heart who dropped him that gentle 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


85 

“ Thank you,” and turned aside to laugh in her sleeve, 
with Daddy for company. And he could not make her 
look at him. If she had, he would have looked away, 
that was certain, still 

He shook his head impatiently, and watched the rings 
of smoke that curled upwards, while Nan, suddenly 
realizing what they involved, with fascinated eyes, 
watched them too. The Chief, who was his own butler, 
would be sure to visit the cellar that evening, and he 
would smell the smoke, and it would all come out, how 
Dinkie had found the key, had let her into the secret, 
who had betrayed it, and — everything. 

He glanced at his watch, and threw away his cigarette. 
” I must be off now. Nan,” he said. 

‘ ‘ Dinkie says you’ re going away altogether very soon, ’ ’ 
said the child, wistfully. 

“Yes.” 

“ And when will you come back ?” Her little face had 
grown suddenly wan, only now that he was going did 
she realise the amount of happiness, of companionship, 
he had brought into her life. 

” Wherever you are, child,” he said, taking the little 
freckled face in his brown palm, “all your life long, if 
I’m alive, I will always come to see you.” 

“And Easter?” she said, with some trouble in her 
voice, that he could not quite understand. 

“ Mrs. Burghersh will have no time to remember me,” 
he said. 

“You have not been very kind to her,” said Nan, 
sadly, “and I hoped you would be such friends. 
When she let you take her wreath off the other day, I 
thought ’ ’ 

“Well?” 

Nan paused. It was so much easier to feel than to 
speak. 

“And you’ve never come near since, not to speak 
to her.” 

“Nan,” he said, “if you have found out anything 
about me, you’ve discovered that I’m a coward. When 
in danger I always — run away.” 

“Who from?” 

“Myself.” 


8 


86 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


“Where to?” 

“This time to Fitzwalters.” 

Nan’s face brightened. 

“Then you’ll come back?” she said, and hugged her- 
self for joy. 

‘ ‘ I don’ t know. ‘ U homme propose ^ et femme dis- 
pose: ” 

He turned to go, but Nan stood stock still, looking 
earnestly at him, that secret “flair” of hers for all human 
' secrets guiding her to the truth — yet not altogether the 
truth. 

“O, Basil,” she said, with a sort of cry, “why didn’t 
you let Easter alone? You’re married, and it’s your 
wife you didn’t want to go to at Fitzwalters !” 

But Basil had passed up the dark stairway, and, open- 
ing the aoor left unlocked in her excitement by Nan, 
v/alked out by that side exit sacred to tradespeople, post- 
men, and the unlawful appearances and disappearances 
incidental to a large family, and vanished. 

Whereupon Nan resumed her seat on the top of the 
cask, covered her head with her skirt, and howled. 

It is only the imaginative who troubles to weave ropes 
out of sand — but when the sand falls in little cones at his 
feet, the imagination returns, not the poorer, but the 
richer, to the owner, who begins the whole toil over 
again — because he must. 


CHAPTER XL 


“Ye’ll sleep mair in the night, master. 

And wake mair in the day ; 

Gae sooner down to Broomfield Hill, 

When ye’ve sic pranks to play.” 

The time was supper. Mrs. Denison had lost her keys, 
and the domestic weather-chart was marked “stormy.” 
These keys were a perfect farce, being never known to 
lock up anything that could not be found in great profu- 
sion everywhere else (as witness the lost cellar key), but 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


87 


the Chief insisted on them as outward symbols of thrift 
that when wanted were invariably missing, till, when the 
house had been thoroughly ransacked and everybody 
strung up to a pitch of agony, they were usually found at 
the bottom of Maria’s pocket, to her own perennial as- 
tonishment. Whereupon she would heave a sigh of con- 
tent and pursue the even tenor of her way — through her 
plate. 

To-night the Chief was especially out of humour, and 
a man’s temper is a ticklish thing, and once set thoroughly 
going does not stop in a hurry, as a woman’s, from mere 
force of circumstances, must. Respectable woman is not, 
in a general way, a destructive animal, man is. She 
knows the cost of sm.ashed crockery and damaged furni- 
ture, and dares not indulge herself ; he probably does not 
know, and certainly does not care, and has a ^igh old 
time generally as he goes on his devastating way, his 
family looking on, a mere pulp of quaking apprehension, 
only too thankful if out of the ruin of everything the do- 
mestic tyrant, really pleased with himself, emerges smiling. 
A woman wouldn’t smile if she had done all these things 
— she would weep — but it is one of the enormous pulls 
the male sex has over the female one that never, under 
any circumstances, does it hang its head or display shame 
of itself, however flagitious may have been its conduct. 

Mr. Denison, then, having helped his family to squalls, 
also to cold roast beef, was about to attack a slice on his 
own plate, when a shabby little figure stole out of the 
shadows, and came close up to her father’s side, with the 
courage of despair. 

“Father,” she said, in a voice that trembled, “if you 
should go into the cellar to-night and smell tobacco- 
smoke, don’t be frightened — it hasn’t been burgled — it’s 
— it’s only me,^^ 

Mr. Denison, who in addition to being an angry man, 
was also a hungry one, glared at the child, whose ugli- 
ness was always a direct reflection on himself, then at the 
Ancient Mariner, who looked about to sink under the 
table. 

“ So this is the way you look after your pupils, ma’am,” 
he flashed out, the more furiously that to him her meek- 
ness was like a red rag to a bull. 


88 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


“It isn’ t her fault, father, ’ ’ cried Nan, eagerly, “ it’ s only 
that I’m so wicked. . . . I found a key that fitted the cel- 
lar door, and I go and sit down there sometimes — it’s so 
cool . . . and . . . and I think . . . and smoke.’’ 

Dinkie’s face was a study, while visions of a door un- 
locked to all comers, of half-emptied casks and rifled re- 
cesses flitted before Tom’s mind. 

‘ ‘ Can't you keep a key of any kind, Maria ?’ ’ he began, 
irritably, and then he happened to look at Nan, and 
something in her face touched him and appeased his 
anger. It occurred to him that she was telling a lie to 
save Dinkie, of whose little propensities he was well 
aware, so promptly asked that gentleman why he sat 
there like a great stuck pig, and let his sister take the 
blame of his misconduct? 

But Dinkie tiaily enough denied the soft impeachment 
— he was not such a fool as to smoke in the cellar — no, 
not he. 

“It is nothing to do with Dinkie, father,’’ said Nan, 
trembling more than ever. “ He wasn’t there, and he 
didn’t know anything about it — really and truly.’’ 

The ring of her voice was sincerity itself, and Dinkie 
looked at her almost with respect. What a limb she 
was ! And she didn’t look a bit sick ! She had cer- 
tainly on this occasion proved her rights to be classed as 
a superior criminal, and he would find it hard work now 
to keep the upper hand of her. 

“There, there,’’ said Mr. Denison, not unkindly, “go 
to bed ;’ ’ then as she turned away he drew her towards 
him, put his arm round her shoulder, and kissed her. 
After all, she had come straight to him and told the 
truth ; she had not kept him at the polite distance his 
children usually did — and something tugged at Tom’s 
heart, and brought unwonted moisture to his eyes, as he 
helped himself to pickles with that slice of roast beef from 
which she had diverted him. 

Nan went away on air. The Chief had been kind to 
her for the first time in her life — and her face still shone 
radiantly, when some time later Dinkie discovered her, 
having made quite a toilette, in bed. 

“You little idiot,’’ he said, sitting down on her toes, 
‘ ‘ why didn’ t you clean up the ashes and hold your tongue ? 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 89 

That was what you were bursting to tell me, I s’ pose, on 
the barrel. Were you sick?” 

“ N — not very,” murmured Nan. 

“And just after Fd been talking to you, and encour- 
aging you to be better !” said Dinkie. 

“You don’t encourage me much, Dinkie,” said Nan, 
with a gulp. ” I often think you are like the man who 
administered the last consolations of religion to the other 
man who was dying — don’t you remember?” 

“No,” said Dinkie, “I don’t. One of your old Joe 
Millers, I s’ pose.” 

“ It isn’t a Joe anything. It was only a colonel who 
missed one of his men on parade and asked the sergeant 
why he was absent. ‘Jones, sir, is dead, sir,’ said the 
sergeant. ‘ Indeed, and when did that happen?’ ‘ Last 
night, sir. I was with him, and administered the last con- 
solations of religion.’ ‘Indeed. What were those?’ 
‘Well, sir, it was this way: ‘‘Jones,” sez I, “you’re 
wery hill.” “Yes,” sez ’e. “And, Jones,” sez I, 
“you ’as been a wery bad man.” “Yes,” sez ’e, sorter 
groanin’ like. “And, Jones,” sez I, “you’re goin’ to 
die.” sez ’e, groanin’ again. “And, Jones,” 

sez I, “you’re goin’ to ’ell.” “ Yes sez ’e, wery ’ang- 
dog. “And, Jones,” sez I, “you ought to be wery 
pleased and proud to ’ave a sitivation provided for you 
free of charge.” “Yes,” sez ’e, and then ’e died.’ 
And I often think, Dinkie, that your encouragements to 
me are something like that sergeant’s consolations to 
Jones.” 

“Well!” said Dinkie, drawing a deep breath, “what 
with smoking tobacco, and telling ribald stories, and re- 
buking your elders, I think your getting along pretty fast 
for a young woman who is trying above a bit to improve 
her soul. But what /want to know is — where you got 
that cigarette? The artfulness of keeping it up your 
sleeve all that time, and pretending you wanted to stop 
down there to think I Mean, / call it I” 

But Nan screwed up her mouth tight, and shook her 
head to signify that horses would not draw a word out 
of her. 

“ I don’t believe you’d got it when I left,” said Dinkie, 
as he began to unlace his boots preparatory to retiring; 

8 * 


90 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


“you’d have told me what you were going to do, or 
bust.” 

But Nan containing herself by supremest effort, Dinkie 
tried strategy. 

‘ ‘ What might you happen to be talking about ?’ ’ he 
said, insinuatingly, ‘ ‘ when you committed such a suicidal 
act as smoking in the cellar, of all earthly places ?’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Souls, ’ ’ said Nan, abstractedly and quite off her guard. 

“So exactly like you,” said Dinkie, “gasing about 
your immortal soul, and getting your vile body into 
trouble all the time. And, pray, who were you talking 
to ? Now, if it had been Peggy, it might have been a 
beau — but nobody could suspect j/ou.” 

But Nan was on the alert now, and not to be drawn. 

“ Well,’’ said Dinkie, decidedly huffed, “ Fm glad you 
had the grace to keep me out of it, anyway,’’ and picking 
up his boots, he departed with an ostentatious absence of 
leave-taking that, under the circumstances. Nan felt to be 
the height of cruelty. 

After the Ancient Mariner had flapped round, and 
rebuked her after what Dinkie called a tadpole fashion 
(he had finally decided that she was a tadpole, not an 
oyster, as an oyster, if no joy to himself, gives pleasure 
to somebody else), Easter came and sat down, a slim, 
young shape in a black grenadine gown with only the 
white of her neck and arms showing through. Black, 
for the black-velvet-eyed, black-haired women, white or 
the nearest colours to white for the fair-skinned ones, thus 
have Nature and Art decreed, no matter how the mantua- 
makers may step in to spoil their dictates. 

“Nan,” said Easter without preamble, “ it was Basil 
Strokoff who smoked in the cellar this afternoon. Did 
he talk about me 

“Not much. You — you ain’t in love with Basil, are 
you?’’ 

“No. V/hy?’’ 

“Because I think he’s married.” 

Easter turned her face away. Nan could make nothing 
of her attitude, but thought she suffered. 

“ Did he come to tell you that?” 

“ He didn’t tell me, I guessed it. You see a man like 
Basil wouldn’t be let stop single, so of course” (Nan 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


91 


lowered her voice) “ he didn’t dare to fall in love with 
you. ’ ’ 

“ I didn’t know that being married made much differ- 
ence to men of that sort.” 

“Oh, Easter !” 

And he is too well-behaved for a married man. And 
too original and unbroken— he is no more married than I 
am. Good-night, child, I’m going — out for a walk.” 

“The garden, you mean ?” 

“Too small. I’m going over the hills and faraway. 
The house stifles me to-night, and everybody is dull as 
ditch-water, and there are too many of us. We want a 
plague to take away half the people, then the other half 
could breathe.” 

“ God bless you, Easter,” cried Nan after her as she 
went out. 

“That’s a queer child,” Mr. Denison was saying as 
he and Maria sat alone in the Green-room together. 
Tobacco is soothing, so is whiskey and water, when 
taken in quantities of neither too much nor too little, 
and having, like most hasty-tempered men, a blessedly 
short memory, Tom had by now quite forgotten his 
recent irritation, and that good old blister, Maria’s keys. 
“ It’s my belief she’s got all the brains of the family.” 

Maria sniffed. She was not imaginative — women who 
bring large families into the world seldom are, and if she 
could have seen Nan’s shivering, naked, inner self, with its 
many needs and sorrows, she would have tried to make it 
comfortable as assiduously as she did Nan’s body, but 
she did not see it, only the. child’s wild ways, and impos- 
sible temperament. She was, moreover, preoccupied, 
having just before supper discovered a gallon jar that 
should have been full of pickled walnuts, empty, and 
her faculties were now fully employed in trying to fix on 
the thief, to such trifles may souls sink (so remote) when 
pickled walnuts vanish (that were so near). And when, 
putting aside the subject that interested Tom, Mrs. 
Denison unfolded her grievance, Tom briefly consigned 
the stolen walnuts and the villain who stole them to a 
warm place ; this, as Maria justly and indignantly ob- 
served, did not restore the walnuts to the person who 
had been at the trouble of pickling them. 


92 


A MAN OF TO-jDAV. 


Easter heard their dissenting voices as she stole past 
the open windows, quite unseen, for it was one of those 
few dark nights of full summer, when the sickle-shaped 
moon has little power, and a soft, almost impenetrable 
gloom prevailed in which it was more easy to feel than to 
see anything very clearly. 

Her spirits rose as she left the garden behind and 
plunged into the orchard, for Nature ever bears the full 
half of every burden you take to her, and a wild sense 
of freedom, of belonging only to herself, made the girl’s 
feet light as air, and so swift that she passed like a soft 
rush of wind someone in the very act of striking a match 
whose light flashed on her face, her beauty seeming to 
divide the darkness as she went by. 

“ Daddy,” she said to herself, angrily, for Daddy had 
been a nuisance lately, and now he had turned up to spoil 
her pleasure, for she felt rather than heard him track- 
ing her, and resolved to lead him a real good dance, 
and then the thought of that long promontory, his 
nose, colliding with a tree tickled her, and she laughed, 
laughed almost into the ear of someone who was nearer 
than she supposed, and who took that smothered laugh- 
ter as a recognition of his identity, and a direct challenge 
to go on pursuing, until he caught her. 

And if she wanted a game of Bo-peep, well, she should 
have it. Still, this was a new reading of her character, 
though he knew that it is only the unexpected that hap- 
pens — ^with a woman. 

The game proceeded on both sides with verve and 
subtlety. To the girl it was a frolic, to the man it 
showed as an indiscretion, and in the worst possible 
taste, but soon he warmed to his work, and gradually 
there woke in him that instinct of the hunter which is 
the most dominant of all instincts in the male breast, and 
that once kindled will not be turned aside, or quenched, 
till gratified, though when he has caught it, when he has 
seized the bleeding, still quivering thing, what then? 
His rage, his lust for it is appeased — it goes into his bag, 
and is forgotten. 

Still, for the quarry that escapes, there is pastime, too ; 
and who shall say that it does not enjoy something of the 
excitement, the hazards, above all, the h/e that beyond 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


93 


any other is comprised in the thing we call sport ? Be 
sure that the hunted exults in confounding the hunter, 
and mocks at the futile efforts made to seize it, and that 
when at last it creeps trembling into safety, it yet tingles 
with the thought of those fierce, burning moments of 
pursuit, in which it realised what life was, and clung to, 
and saved it. 

Once a fold of Easter’s gown slipped through Basil’s 
fingers, anon his hand touched hers, and occasionally he 
heard her laughing softly, as in purest enjoyment at his 
expense, and if he were light of foot, and keen of ear, as 
all born hunters are, she was quicker ; moreover, she was 
on her own ground, and knew every yard of the place, 
which he did not. 

More than once they felt each other’s breath upon their 
faces, and occasionally she stood motionless, and he passed 
her for a tree ; again, he clasped a slender trunk thinking 
that he had her, and once she dropped like a stone when 
he must have seized her, and he fell head foremost over 
her body, but she was up and away before he had even 
regained his feet, and he struck himself more than one 
blow, but did not pause to heed them. The timid night 
animals were all as still as mice ; they knew well enough 
when their enemy, man, was abroad, and hid themselves 
away, and listened, and wondered what it all meant, and 
did their nibbling furtively. 

Presently Basil stumbled over some small thing — surely 
put there on purpose to trip him up — it was a black satin 
slipper, and as he hurled it from him he swore, and that 
swear nearly lost Easter the game, for the voice was not 
Daddy’s, and a cold chill ran through her as she realised 
that she had been playing a housemaid’s game of Touch- 
last with — Basil. 

Where was her courage that she could not shout out, 
“ Fen ! I thought you were Daddy Gardner” ? Instead, 
she escaped barely in time, for the fever was now in her 
blood ; some of his fury had communicated itself to her, 
and she would die before he should catch her, and then 
she could have killed him, he did so mean a thing. He 
struck a match, and so revealed her — no angel, but a 
creature full of the wine of life, of scorn, of provocation, 
her dazzling bloom painted on the darkness of the night, 


94 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


and the next moment swallowed up in it, as she fiercely 
struck the light from his hand, and was gone. 

She had been gradually drawing him off tow'ards that 
end of the orchard which terminated in a wall in which 
was a postern door, usually kept locked by the gardener 
against little marauders, and what if it were locked to- 
night ? . . . A dash across the open, a door-handle that 
— thank God ! — turned, and Easter was inside it, and had 
dashed it in the face of her pursuer before he was even 
aware that she had escaped him. 

Quivering, breathless, less triumphant perhaps than she 
had expected to be, Easter drew the bolt and fell in a heap 
on the ground, while on the other side, baffled and furious, 
Basil listened to his own thundering heart-beats, and 
cursed all women great and small. 

He might easily have climbed the wall, aided by the 
walnut-tree’s friendly bough, but he did not, and Easter 
goin^ laggingly away thought, with a curious fear and 
longing, how sweet it would be if he had come over — 
and made her — i?iade her — love him. 


CHAPTER XII. 

“ Wouldst thou run 

And tempt a fate which prudence bids thee shun?” 

It requires some nerve to call on a young woman whom 
you have chivied round her own orchard like any house- 
maid overnight, but Basil did not seem to find it a diffi- 
cult feat, his only trouble was to catch the person to whom 
he desired to make his apology, and who declined to be 
caught, so that now, after lingering to the last moment, 
he had departed. 

“ He’s a silent chap !” said Dinkie, who had come up 
to tell Easter the coast was clear. ‘ ‘ I asked him the 
other day why he’d got a prince’s crown on the backs of 
his hair-brushes and all that sort of thing — O, Lord ! his 
dressing-table is like what a woman’s ought to be — and 
he just stared at me, and lit a cigar. While as to his 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


95 


bags — it’s sinful, just sinful, to see half a hundred pair 
wasting their sweetness on hooks, while Pve only got 
three, and all their seats more or less gone wrong ! I’ve 
found out who the swell was that came with him, and 
convulsed the town by his elegance and strict incognito 
— it was Strokoff’s valet, and he packed him back to 
Town the Monday after he came. But the cat’s out of 
the bag at last, and I doubt if you see much more of His 
Serene Highness Prince Strokoff. He’s bowled out, 
caught, nobbled, and he don’t like it either, or dumb 
swearing’s gone out of fashion.” 

‘ ‘ What do you mean ?’ ’ cried Easter, facing round ab- 
ruptly. 

“Well, Strokoff and I were toddling down the street 
yesterday afternoon when Lord Hawkhurst drove past, 
and when he saw Strokoff, he pulled up so sharp as 
nearly to upset the apple-cart, and said, just as if he saw 
a spook, — 

‘ ‘ ‘ Good God ! Strokoff, where do you spring from ? 
We’ve been expecting you this fortnight !’ 

‘ ‘ Basil said he was coming over in a few days, just 
then he was busy gndgeon-fishing. Hawkhurst stared, 
winked, thought a bit, then asked who he knew in this 
God-forsaken hole ? Basil mentioned the Chief. 

‘ ‘ ‘ Denison ?’ said Hawkhurst, ‘ the hardest rider in 
the county, has the prettiest daughter, and who makes a 
big fortune out of chair-bottoms ?’ 

“ ‘Just so,’ said Basil, in his cool way. ‘Let me in- 
troduce his son.’ And he did. 

“ ‘You’ll excuse me, m’ lud,’ I said, making- my best 
bow” — and Dinkie tilted his impudent nose to its highest 
point of impudence — “ ‘but it’s ’oss-’air chair-bottoms, 
not cane. Father’s keeping the re-seating of old chairs 
by the wayside for the luxury of his old age !’ Strokoff 
laughed, and I bolted, but I saw Strokoff shake his head 
and look riled, and Hawkhurst passed me afterwards look- 
ing disgusted. Shouldn’t wonder if there’s a petticoat in 
the case,” added Dinkie, shrewdly, as he rummaged 
in Easter’s work-basket for a bit of wax he wanted. 
“There’s some other attraction, you bet, besides Hawk- 
hurst at Fitzwalters, and just you see if she don’t turn 
up here pretty soon.” 


96 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


“His wife, perhaps,” said Easter, thinking of Nan’s 
words. 

“Fudge! Basil ain’t a marrying sort. Look at his 
waistcoats I Did you ever see a married man’s waist- 
coats sit like his? And there ain’t a blooming wrinkle in 
his forehead, that’s where marriage as a failure scores. I 
expect,” added Dinkie, with a grin, “there’ll be some 
pretty deep ones in Jem’s before he’s many years older !” 
And with this parting compliment to his sister, vanished. 

Easter walked up to her looking-glass and studied what 
she saw there. 

Sometimes Nature only whispers, and you may feign 
not to hear her, sometimes she shouts, and you must 
hearken, ay, and obey her too. She was only whisper- 
ing to Easter now, who knew well enough that to fall in 
love with Basil would be utter madness, and that she 
must escape swiftly before the fire had seized and shriv- 
elled her into nothing . . . she would not abandon her- 
self to the warmth, the thrill, the delicious intoxication 
which was beginning to steal over her — to this new, 
sweet fever that was creeping through her veins — and if 
she had power to subdue it, if she could reason thus over 
it, had love the divine really touched her ? I trow not. 
He takes us unawares and strikes us mute, helpless, for 
we cannot flee away from him, however much we would, 
and if but the fluttering of his wings warn us of his ap- 
proach, then he is not love, but love’s step-brother, yet 
will the mime show often like reality, when jealousy of 
‘ ‘ the other woman’ ’ skewers a proud heart through and 
through, inflicting as deep a wound and harder of heal- 
ing, as if love himself had done his very worst and best. 

What was she like, this Fitzwalters woman — to whom 
Basil had been on his way when for a mere whim he had 
dropped in to pay a morning call at Penroses, and stayed ? 

The Hawkhurst set was notorious in the county for its 
fast London contingent, in which the only recognised 
duty in life was — to conjugate the verb “to amuse” in 
its every tense, always forgetting the past participle, and 
never pulling up short for anything but that one colossal 
mistake in the human world’s creation — pain. 

Basil belonged to that set. His manners, his ways, the 
nothings that go to make up a man of style and note — 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


97 


all pointed to a world to which he would drift naturally, 
and Penroses would know him no more. 

She turned angrily away from her own reflection and 
went downstairs and out into the garden, where she pres- 
ently stumbled upon Hugon, sitting under the copper 
beech, doing some plain needlework for Maria, and for 
awhile lay flat on her back, her eyes mounting and seem- 
ingly bent on exploring the endless vistas of leaves over- 
head. 

“Why can’t we have pointed roofs instead of ugly 
flat white ceilings to our houses?” she said, discontent- 
edly, ‘ ‘ like the old English folk, who, if they could not 
get arched roofs, loved to make them pointed, with pol- 
ished timber beams on which their eyes rested, as if look- 
ing upwards through a tree? It was about the only com- 
fort they had got, when they left their beloved forests 
and were obliged to suflbcate within four walls. Do you 
know, Hugon, I often wish I had been born a gipsy, and 
had to steal my supper before eating and cooking it? It 
would give it such a flavour !” 

“You would make someone else steal it for you,” 
said Hugon.” 

“Can you tell me,” said Easter, abruptly, “why 
good-looking people mostly make such muddles of their 
lives? Why having a face that should bring love usually 
makes you signally unlucky?” 

‘ ‘ I suppose because the prettiest woman usually 
attracts the worst type of man. He loves her for her 
beauty — he wants that, and no more — her heart, her 
understanding, her charms of character go for nothing ; 
he has not looked for, he does not even want to see 
them. So when he has got tired of the pretty face, 
naturally he deserts it, and it’s a fact that men with ugly 
wives are invariably more moral than those with hand- 
some ones. The man who never looks beyond the tip 
of his wife’s unsatisfactory nose is safe, beauty won’t 
tempt him an inch ; indeed, beauty rather shocks him, 
and he averts his eyes when he meets it as something 
dangerous ; he has got used to his homely food, and can’t 
properly assimilate a more tempting diet. It’s the men 
with good-looking wives who are always getting into 
scrapes; they’ve got their eye in for beauty, and the 

mg 9 


98 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


more they have the more they want ; so that the every- 
day companionship of beauty enervates and makes them 
good for nothing. And taking it all round, it’s the 
plain women who get the plums of life, not the beauties. 
Your dowdy woman is usually much more devotedly 
loved than your fresh one, and why? Because she’s 
better-tempered — because she doesn’t flirt — and a man 
likes to fill all a woman’s horizon with his own ugly phiz ; 
because beauty is an elegant superfluity, while ugliness 
populates at least three parts of the world !’ ’ 

“It’s very rough on the pretty ones,” said Easter, 
gravely. “You seem to know a lot about men, Hugon, 
and I think you’ve been the victim of one of them — or 
you wouldn’t be so wise. It’s only those who have worn 
the thumbscrew who know how to fit it on other people’s 
thumbs ! And talk about finding a woman at the top of 
every staircase ; it strikes me there’s always a man at the 
bottom ! What was he like ?’ ’ 

Hugon closed her eyes. She saw a bearded face, 
warm with the warmth of a sleek animal that exhaled 
health and vigour, bland with the pagan sensuousness of 
an easy humanity, and a luxury-loving nature that denied 
itself nothing, and for whom in its desires the barriers 
between right and wrong simply did not exist. A man 
to envelope a woman with his big, strong personality, to 
be gentle with her, to make her like unto himself, and 
drag her soul down unto hell. 

‘ ‘ I understand now why you were so snippy about 
those letters at Fairmile,” said Easter, sitting erect. “ I 
wish I’d got Basil’s. Oh !” she drew in her breath 
sharply, “he would be a demon lover, and make all 
others tame — it would be like playing with tiger-pups, 

and then putting up with spaniels ’ ’ 

“I shouldn’t exactly compare Jem to a spaniel,” said 
Hugon, drily, “ or Basil to a tiger-pup. His play would 
be of a sterner kind — more like his full-grown papa’s, 
for instance — and I should say his heart was one of 
many chambers, and that they are mostly full.” 

“Very likely. But no woman wants what no other 
woman wants. Some men are costly — like women — but 
one doesn’t grudge the price. I hate cheap things. 
But there is no price that would buy Basil Strokoff.” 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


99 


Hugon looked up. 

“ So you have found that out,” she said. ” Yet you 
were angry with me at Fairmile.” 

‘ ‘ How did you come to understand him so well ?’ ’ said 
Easter. 

” I don’t understand him now. A man can thoroughly 
understand a man, and a woman a woman, but not a man 
a woman, or a woman a man. A male child of two will 
understand his father better than his mother ever can, and 
a girl child knows what her mother feels without a word 
being spoken. I think it’s beautiful — the silent compre- 
hension and sympathy between men — without a word, 
scarcely a look even — it is given and received in silence, 
but each knows. 

‘‘The man who controls himself controls others,” said 
Easter, following her own train of thought, ‘ ‘ and I should 
like to be mastered.” 

“ But not broken,” said Hugon. ‘‘ It would not suit 
you at all, Essie. And Basil will never break any woman 
— ^for he will never marry. He is too sensible of the 
powder in the jam, too profoundly versed in his own 
character, to commit such suicide. As a good citizen, he 
ought, of course, to scorn other people’s experience, and 
make a fool of himself, and suffer as severely as the rest ; 
but he has gone round to the other side of the hedge, 
examined it well, returned to the front, and never found 
courage — to leap. Now, Jem ” 

“Jem,” said Easter, tartly, “had far better take a leaf 
out of Basil’s book. He thinks he has only got to marry 
a woman to make her happy — doubts on that point don’t 
incommode him in the least. Basil has qualms.” 

“Jem is sure of himself — Basil isn’t.” 

“Oh ! how dull — how deadly dull,” burst out Easter, 
passionately, “to live with a man who is always sure of 
himself — and of— of you/ Does Nature produce one 
flower, one fruit, then become barren ? Each one bears 
in it the seeds of another — and you will go on loving, if 
the power of love be in you, till you die. The real 
English of a woman’s life-long faithfulness to one man is 
that no second man has come along strong and resolute 
enough to efface that first impression with his own, and 
dislodge that lifeless fetish from her bosom — she has never 


lOO 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


loved at all, if she is not able to love again — and better. 
Why do you stare at me ? I am eighteen years old. Do 
you suppose I have never thought 9 And I can feel too. 
And I say it’s the law of all healthy humans to constantly 
change their opinions — and their hearts too — as circum- 
stances compel them.” 

” I should advise you, Easter, not to marry.” 

“I wouldn’t — if I were a man. What is marriage? 
Because you long for a draught of water on a hot day, 
do you always want water ? — or you are famishing, your 
life depends on a crust of bread, but will you always be 
hungry? You say yourself that no man should marry 
— and I say that all women must. ’ ’ 

” Poor Jem !” said Hugon, bitterly. 

“Yes — he’ll want all your pity. But he’ll be very 
happy all the same !’ ’ 


CHAPTER XIII. 

‘ And whaur gat ye that rose water 
That does mak’ ye sae white?’ 

‘ O, I did get the rose water 
Whaur ye will ne’er get nane, 
For I did get that very rose water 
Into my mother’s wambe.’ ” 


“Basil !” 

The voice was the voice of Lala Hoyos, the high dog- 
cart on which she was perched, the horse between tfc 
shafts, of that superlative smartness absolutely essential 
to all her surroundings, great or small, while the man 
beside her was as well turned out as the rest of it — a mere 
accessory to herself, as indeed most things and people 
were. 

“ Mrs. Hoyos !” said Basil, composedly, as he raised 
his straw hat, and nodded to Lord Hawkhurst. 

“Bill told me you were here,” she said, “so we’ve 
come over to fetch you. ’ ’ 

“Thanks, awfully,” said Basil, in the most ungrateful 
of voices. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


101 


For a moment Mrs. Hoyos looked disconcerted, for if 
she knew one human book from cover to cover it was 
Basil, while Bill drew his mouth into whistling form, and 
wished himself further. 

“I’ll get out,” said Mrs. Hoyos, and did so with great 
neatness and despatch, then looked up curiously at the 
ugly back of Penroses, out of which Basil had just been 
turning when he heard his name called. 

‘ ‘ Who lives there ?’ ’ she said. 

“That’s Denison’s house,” struck in Bill. “You’re 
stopping at ‘The George,’ Strokoff, aren’t you? I’ll 
take the cart round, and perhaps you’ll give Lala some 
tea.” 

“You are very untidy, Basil,” she said, as they went 
side by side down the blazing street; “you would not 
dare to wear that tie in town, and your hair is cut shame- 
fully.” 

“And you are exactly right, as usual, Lala,” he said, 
glancing her keenly over from head to foot — and so she 
was, with that undefinable cachet not to be possessed by 
any woman who has not thoroughly disabused her mind 
of every prejudice in form of virtue. 

“What is she like?” enquired Mrs. Hoyos, languidly. 

Basil laughed. 

“ Here is ‘ The George,’ ” he said, and, calling for tea, 
piloted her into a pleasant room upstairs, well littered 
with all the odds and ends of a young man whose mind 
was always in excess of his fashion. 

When he had put her into a chintz-covered easy chair 
and kissed her in a quiet, methodical fashion, she pro- 
duced a little silken bag with a mirror at the back of it, 
and powdered her nose carefully before she again spoke. 

,“ Caught, mon prince '' she said, as she leaned her 
miraculously-dressed chestnut head indolently back among 
the cushions, “and you have been here over a fortnight !” 

“Well?” 

Lala’s shrug expressed volumes. 

‘ ‘ Are you a man to stay in a hole like this for nothing ?’ ’ 
she said. 

“The Pleasures of Hope” — he murmured, and just 
then tea appeared, served on green and gold china, at 
whose beauty Lala exclaimed enviously. 

9 * 


102 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


‘ ‘ Mr. Denison sent it round, ' ’ he said ; “he was shocked 
at the delft he found me drinking out of the other day.” 

Mrs. Hoyos looked down thoughtfully at a huge ova^ 
turquoise on her forefinger. 

“ Dumpty or tall ?” she said. 

“Five feet six.” 

“Any style?” 

“ I say,” said Bill, blundering in, and looking uneasily 
from one to the other, “ you’d better come back with us 
— you really had. We’ve got a man who does coster 
songs nearly as well as Chevalier, and some toppin’ girls 
who don’t mind anything. One of them is runnin’ me 
shockin’ — and I want protection — ’pon my soul I do.” 

“I’ll come,” said Basil, to his own intense astonish- 
ment, and Lala’s colourless face changed. In repose it 
was rather cruel, and, as usual with a more or less burnt- 
out life, a life that has lived and enjoyed every moment 
of it, her mouth was perfectly straight, for the cold 
voluptuaries of the world are invariably thin-lipped ; the 
thick-lipped people may be passionate, but they are 
faithful, and a good many other despised things also. 
Yet when Lala smiled, she was irresistible, and there 
was triumph and real joy, too, in the look she gave Basil, 
while Bill heaved a sigh of thanksgiving — his white ele- 
phant was safely housed, and his own path made easy 
for the present. 

“ Call your valet,” he said, with wonderful animation ; 
“ have your things chucked into a portmanteau and you 
can drive Lala over, and I’ll borrow a ‘ gee’ and follow.” 

“ Haven’t got any man here,” said Basil. “ Suppose 
you take Lala round the garden while I collect my 
togs ?’ ’ 

And so it happened that Easter, cavorting with her 
‘ ‘ boys’ ’ in the orchard, looked up to see two fashionable 
figures, singularly out of place among the stocks and 
cabbages of the kitchen garden, saw the Fitzwalters 
woman, and in a second of time — understood that Basil 
was — fetched. 

“ O my ! What toffs !” ejaculated Reggy, audibly. 

“What bloom — what sinful bloom !” murmured Lala, 
as Easter, swallowed up in a cloud of adorers, vanished. 

“I say, old man,” whispered Bill presently in Basil’s 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


103 

ear, “I admire your courage in running away — but 
when you’re cjuite out of it, you don’t mind my coming 
over, and taking up the running, do you ?’ ’ 


CHAPTER XIV. 

It is those who lead that are transgressors, rather than those who 
follow. ’ ’ — Thucydides. 

‘^It isn’t a house-party, it’s a menagerie,” said Lala 
Hoyos, glancing round the Fitzwalters dinner table with 
utter contempt. “Bill’s valet -chooses his clothes for 
him, and his friends choose him. He has a heart, and 
to mix your guests properly, you must have the stomach 
of a camel, the hide of a rhinoceros, and the tact of the 
devil. Luckily the chef is all right, but he has a glass 
eye, and I’m always expecting to find it in the soup !” 

Basil laughed. It was Lala’s charm that she never 
bored him. She had not committed the one unspeak- 
able, unforgivable sin, the only one that a man recognises 
as a sin, of wearying him, for to have really bored a man 
covers so vast a tract of failure ! You must have out- 
raged his taste (his feelings don’t matter) at all points 
before he abandons his natural attitude towards you, and 
regards you as a dandelion instead of a clove-pink. You 
may commit a murder, basely deceive him, squander his 
money, even lose your beauty and spoil his, and he will 
love you still, but once bore him, and all is over. 

Lala smiled too, with those grey eyes that we are told 
go to Paradise, having first sent a good many men to 
hell, for she knew it was quite impossible that a man in 
love should eat the dinner that Basil then was eating. 
She forgot that he and French cooking had been 
divorced these two weeks, and that good as had been 
the plain fare and excellent cellar at Penroses, Basil had 
always been more gourmet than gourmand, and never 
ceased to thank the Providence that had endowed him 
with an absolutely perfect palate. It is one of the greatest 
(in the long run) of earthly joys — ^pray observe that I 
don’t say spiritual ones — for no day can dawn absolutely 


104 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


without hope to a man who can enjoy his breakfast, be 
solicitous about his lunch, and look forward with pious 
hope to his dinner. And no human being can work or 
play properly without good food, and he who neglects it 
IS a fool. 

“You’re awfully out of place here, Lala,” he said, and 
indeed she looked like a star fallen among cabbages, in 
her airy gown of white chiffon with cunning gleams of 
green and gold about the breast, and put on with all the 
willowy grace of a woman who has lived every hour of 
her life, and has never found time to be anything but 
slender. 

In vivid contrast to her small, narrow, high-bred face, 
crowned with exquisitely-dressed chestnut hair, rose up 
Easter’s with its extraordinary colouring, and Lala read 
his thoughts as his appraising glance swept her. 

“ Is it real?” she said, drily. “ I’ve been trying to suit 
her skin with a word. Carmine? Too artificial. Rose- 
red? Too deep. Apple-blossom? Too pale. I never 
saw such colouring before in the whole course of my life. ’ ’ 

“ I don’t think she can help it,” said Basil. “It’s in- 
digenous — like your viniy for instance — and the way you 
put on your clothes.” 

‘ ‘ Thank you. Your compliment is like the smart awn- 
ing a cabman puts up to hide the craziness of his cab and 
the broken-windedness of his horse. And man,” she 
added, as if answering a thought, “ is a contradictious ani- 
mal, who won’t even be contradicted into doing things he 
doesn’t choose.” 

‘ ‘ How did you know I was at Rokehorne ?’ ’ he en- 
quired. 

‘ ‘ Is not my tailor thy tailor ? And is not Bond Street 
common to all? I was trying on a new autumn coat as I 
passed through town, and Snips himself was superintend- 
ing the operation, when a letter was brought to him in 
your handwriting. I felt that it must be for me, and took 
it out of his hand without thinking, and the postmark 
happened to be that of the nearest post town to Bill.” 

She paused. 

“So when my cousin Hawkhurst asked me down, I 
gave up Homburg,” she concluded, coolly, “and came 
the day before yesterday. ’ ’ 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


105 

Basil nodded, knowing that Bill would as soon dream 
of asking the Queen to stop with him as that quintessence 
of fashion, his cousin Lala Hoyos, and he also knew very 
well why she was here, and had not yet reconciled him- 
self to the manner of her appearance at Penroses. It was 
an extreme step for Lala to take, and one that entailed 
considerable risk, for if there is one thing that a true- 
born Briton hates more than another, it is being fetched 
home in a perambulator by his lawful or unlawful owner 
— whether he is enjoying himself flagitiously, or whether 
he isn’t. And Lala had gone perilously near to fetching 
Basil — and in the very nick of time too — and he keenly 
resented such interference. But Bill’s chef was working 
with her, and for her, and glancing down the long wide 
table, her spirits rose. 

Now, there is much virtue in a table, or rather in the 
width of it, as all experts in entertaining know. 

Sit down at a narrow board where you are overlooked, 
spied upon, by a row of close human eyes, and discomfort, 
misery even, will be the result. A desperate longing to 
escape from the good- or ill-natured microscopes on the 
other side will assail you, but all the same, you sit tight, 
and add one more suffering to the expiation of your 
sins. But gaze at a landscape, men and women, what 
you will, at a distance, and you are insensibly soothed — 
though you don’t in the least know why. You dream 
and are happy, while into your expression will come 
that peaceful look which the old masters so cunningly 
gave to their Madonnas by always making them look at 
things remote, and not immediately under their ken, and 
which Landseer gave to those lions in Trafalgar Square, 
whose noble and majestic gaze seems to scorn the near 
objects around them, as they gaze into far distant space. 

‘ ‘ Did you ever behold such people ?’ ’ she said, drop- 
ping her voice, ‘ ‘ where the women are all right, the men 
are all wrong — and the other way round. Do you see 
that man over there? Well, he writes, and he is witty, 
but his finger-nails are always in deep mourning. He 
told me last night that he always took a Turkish bath 
once a week. ‘ Then I have always met you the day be- 
fore,’ I said. He has paid me out, though, because he 
told me he always spelt erratic women \5ath one ‘ r’ and 


lo6 A MAN OF TO-DAY. 

an ‘o/ before he gave me my bedroom candlestick. 
Malet’s in a tight place,” she went on, carelessly, “have 
you heard? Body’s husband is dead. There area lot 
of vacancies just now, and all the married women’s best 
boys are having a shocking time. Just as if a lover 
wouldn’t be just as unbearable as one’s own husband at 
the end of the week ! And Leila is divorcing her hus- 
band — at last — case number 191 on the list. She didn’t 
mind the other woman turning her out of her house and 
living in it, with her name, but she never ceases to regret 
her best lace flounce !’ ’ 

Basil looked enquiringly at Lala, who in town, among 
other things, was remarkable for her extremely quiet 
manners, because, as she was wont to say to her inti- 
mates, if you will only be moderate in your expressions 
and your appearance, you may be as immoderate in your 
acts as you please. The persons who talk about sins 
never commit them — those who don’t, do. 

“O! you may scowl, Basil,” she said. “You are 
growing old and cold, ’ ’ she added, in a swift underbreath, 

‘ ‘ and you do not trouble about anything nowadays much, 
except to be cross and dull. It is not that philosophy 
has taught you anything, or that you have taught your- 
self anything — your froideur is due to dying fires within. 
And I always thought you would be alive — alive to your 
finger tips, even after you were dead. Now, a man dined 
here last night who manages to be good without being 
dull — a Mr. Burghersh. Bill says his place is a much 
better one than this, and we fished for an invitation, but 
Burghersh wouldn’t give it. He only comes here be- 
cause Miss Denison tells him to, or so he told Bill. Pretty 
good that, for a well-bred man. They say he’ s only happy 
at Penroses.” 

“Very likely. Isn’t that Carew over there ?” 

“Yes, and that’s his new wife. The second from you 
on the right. Did you hear what happened at his wed- 
ding? He couldn’t find the ring when it was wanted — 
fished for it in vain with his gloved fingers — at last, in 
despair, bit furiously at his lavenders — when out came a 
complete set of false teeth ! Does Burghersh really want 
to marry Apple-Cheeks ?’ ’ 

“It’s the other way round, I believe.” 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


107 


‘ ‘ What luck for her ! And of course she must. Mar- 
riage is her platform, and every woman wants a platform 
to herself. The person who gets up and squalls is safe — 
you can see her. Once give her a place above the ruck 
— room to move — a silence to speak in — and she has a 
chance. If she does not do badly, she does well. And 
Burghersh will be the showman in this instance. Won- 
derful going for her, of course, but it is the inno- 
cent, early bed-going, early-rising, syllabub-eating life 
that is responsible for more love-making, lawful and un- 
lawful, than all the wicked delights of Town put together ! 
You have more health, more energy, and, most strenuous 
ally of the devil, more time than you have in Town for 
getting into mischief! The cream, the roses, the fresh 
air are all delicious — but there must be love, or the pre- 
tence of it, to give them flavour. It isn’t opportunity or 
importunity, or both combined, that makes people do 
such idiotic things in the country — it’s simply that there 
is nothing else to be done. In Town, of course, one 
doesn’t want — one doesn’t even remember a man — he as- 
sumes his true proportions — but in the country,” and she 
shrugged her shoulders, and finally expressed her opinion 
that rural joys were the most immoral in the world ; 
“and the costliest too,” she added, significantly, “be- 
cause, for a man to throw down his future, his life, and 
his fortune in payment for a fancy that may last half an 
hour or half a lifetime, is about the biggest gamble he 
can do. And that price Burghersh is prepared to pay — 
poor fool !” 

Basil was silent for awhile, then he enquired for her 
husband. 

“ He is in Scotland. You are eating a bit of his grouse 
now,” said Lala, whose way of mentioning her lord sug- 
gested that a husband did not come under the heading of 
a male at all. And, indeed, the husbands of Society 
women occupy a place in the world’s economy extremely 
hard to define, having been altogether overlooked in its 
original scheme. 

“Who is that fresh-cheeked girl at the end of the 
table ?” enquired Basil. “ The toppin ones dazzle me so, 
I can’t get past them all at once.” 

‘ ‘ Lady Biddy — the girl who Bill says ought to be 


io8 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


Burgliersh’s choice. The old woman next to Bill is her 
mother. She represents the type of blameless aristocrat 
whom you never hear of — except in the obituary. Isn’t 
the place hideous?” she went on, dropping her voice, 
“and don’t these priceless pictures, those heavy pieces 
of gold plate shriek out, ‘ Life tenant !’ ‘ Life tenant !’ 

at the top of their voices, every time you look at them ? 
It makes one feel inclined to build one’s funeral pyre of 
one’s own unentailed and most precious goods !” 

She leaned back in her chair and looked at Basil. He 
was good to look at, and into her eyes came the look that 
no man on earth but he had ever brought there . , . and 
Basil knew that look. It had always appealed to him — 
and it appealed to him now, the little colourless, high- 
bred face still held its own. 

For a man’s habits remain, when all his passions, and 
fancies, and longings are dead. 


CHAPTER XV. 

“ The old Chaldean oracles, fragments of angelic wisdom, speak 
of two Suns, and of one as ‘ more true ’ than the other. That ‘ more 
true’ Sun shines throughout the entire spiritual universe, and its 
heat and light are the Love and Wisdom of the Divine Man, who is 
the Centre and life of all things.” 

Easter was standing outside the schoolroom door — 
not listening, for the doors always being open, and every- 
body talking at the top of his voice, to listen was a work 
of supererogation, but because her name — with all the 
deadly fascination of one’s own name — had caught her 
ear. 

” Easter don’t like it, my child,” said Dinkie ; “ even 
if you don’t want a thing, you like to know it’s there — 
and Easter ain’t perfect by any means — ^why, didn’t 
Momus accuse Venus of being a heavy-footed beauty, 
and deny her right to absolute perfection because he 
heard her approach ?’ ’ 

“Where did you get that from?” enquired Melons, 
with interest. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 1 09 

“And pray, miss,” said Dinkie, with great acerbity, 
“ do you suppose I study at the pure fount of Greek 
literature for nothing? Don’t attempt to talk to classical 
scholars, if you please !’ ’ 

“H’m,” said Melons, “you go on the plan of little 
and often, I suppose, in amassing your knowledge?” 

“ Certainly, my love. Never litter up your mind with 
superfluous knowledge or trash, or you’ll always be 
bringing up some other fellow’s ideas, and be called a 
plagiarist, or something insulting. Reading is a disease 
born of idleness, and only seriously contracted by the 
sit-me-downs of life, and I highly approve of that 
Ptolemy who refused to the inhabitants of Pergamus a 
supply of papyrus, on the plea that a second library was 
not required in the world. Penroses is the other library 
that is not required. Let us then be up and doing he 
spouted grandiloquently. “Ain’t it a fact that nearly all 
the great workers in the world have been men who never 
found time to rake up, and read about, other men’s great 
ideas and works, because they were always too busy con- 
ceiving and carrying out their own ? So with a man who 
lives his life — how is he to be writing down his emotions 
when he is enjoying ’em? That’s why most books are 
such tommy-rot, because you don’t get the man’s 
impressions hot and hot, but a lot of ghosts that have 
faded into the pale wall of memory. O ! you may snig- 
ger, miss, but that’s clean out of my own head— which 
aches terrible bad this morning,” he added, in impotent 
conclusion. 

“So it ought. You look regularly deboshed, and 
your nose is like old Shrubsole’s.” 

“It was that sherry wine last night,” said Dinkie, 
holding his head in both hands, as he lay at ease on the 
schoolroom floor. ‘ ‘ It lights up the fires of Shadrach 
and Abednego in one’s inside — catch me accepting a 
drink again when I go out ratting, without knowing 
where the man gets his tipple. It’s almost as great a 
risk as when you are staying at a strange house and a 
plateful of eggs is held you to choose from — I always say 
a prayer when I choose mine. Dear me, ’ ’ he continued, 
in a philosophising way, ‘ ‘ if only we could look inside 
before we choose, instead of after !” 

10 


no 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


/ 

i 

/‘ If only we could be born old and end up young,” 
sdid Nan, dreamily. 

“Everything comes too late,” said Dinkie, pulling 
the cushion under his head into more comfortable posi- 
tion ; ‘ ‘ even a bishop never gets his promotion till he 
hasn’t got any calves to show !” 

Melons jumped as Dinkie’s lolling arm felled a small 
table to the floor, and she exclaimed, irritably, ‘ ‘ How 
you made me jump !” 

‘ ‘ Like the frog, my dear, only what he said was, ‘ O ! 
Lord, how you did make me hop !’ And as to your 
nerves, have you observed that one is never upset by 
one’s own noises? O dear no ! When we are crashing 
and banging away in a fine frenzy, and smashing the 
crockery, we don’t put our hands to our ears and cry out 
about our poor nerves — not much ! No ! we go on 
grandly, enjoy ingly, devastatingly, and have a high old 
time ; it is only when other people drop the fireirons or 
play Aunt Sally with the household gods that our heads 
ache. O yes !” 

“It’s high time,” said Melons, who seemed to owe 
Dinkie a grudge this morning, ‘ ‘ that the Chief took you 
away from that rubbishing grammar school and made 
you work; you’ll be always getting into mischief till you 
do.” 

“ I thank you, dear love, but I don’t mean to be one 
of the moilers of the earth. Did you ever see a harder 
worker than Nan? — and so terribly willing, too — it’s a 
great mistake to be willing — you only get laughed at, and 
nobody respects you. I can’t abide an officious person 
myself. / mean to be a shirker. Shirkers and workers 
rhyme, and are born in pairs. It’s a law of Providence 
— or Political Economy, or something of that sort — and 
it works splendidly. Every shirker has only to find his 
other half, who is a worker, and all goes well. ‘ The 
working wife makes the holiday husband,’ and vice versd. 
And there’s a fine, self-sacrificing spirit in the workers 
that makes it a positive pleasure to immolate themselves 
for the shirkers— -to say nothing of the glow of satisfaction 
they feel at knowing themselves so much nobler and better 
than the person they are helping — and the shirker grins, 
and puts up with the contempt — it’s so much pleasanter 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


Ill 


than having to work ! Lie down and let the clouds roll 
by, someone or other is sure to trundle you out of dan- 
ger, and take care that you are not exposed to it again. 
And in conclusion, my children, there are natures (like 
Nan’s) that give all their lives long, and natures that 
grab, /’flf be born a grabber.” 

Nan shook her head in violent dissent — to get a word 
in edge-ways she knew was impossible, but she hated to 
hear Dinkie thus belittle himself. 

“In addition,” continued Dinkie, “ I’d be born a fool. 
The helpless fools — ^as you call ’em — ^are the cleverest 
people out. Why was the fool of the court formerly the 
most powerful person in it ? Because under his caps and 
bells he hid the wisest head there. They can afford to 
be fools — and they’ve mastered the true secret of success 
in life — to make other people do everything for them, 
while the clever person who begins by exulting in depend- 
ence on no man, finds out that he is the fool who has to 
work to his dying day.” 

“Nan !” cried Easter’s voice from the threshold, and 
Nan came rushing out, and together by devious ways they 
wended their way to the hothouse tank, sacred to all con- 
versations of a private character, and in the near neigh- 
bourhood of which had been celebrated those snail-feasts 
of Bunkulorum, now almost forgotten. One can’t go on 
for ever remembering other folks’ sins, one finds it hard, 
sometimes, to remember one’s own. 

It was very still here, with the warm, moist, indescrib- 
able smell of young green things growing, and when 
Easter had barred the door, she looked round at the 
young, unconscious face that was so eagerly watching 
hers. That was Nan’s charm — that she was perfectly 
unconscious of self— that she thought of you — dived into 
your heart — and would change places with you any day, 
to bear your sorrow. 

It is called variously, this gift — it goes by the name of 
genius, sympathy, comprehension, but it is something 
more — it is a drawing away by the Divine hand of the 
film that hangs between ordinary folk and their fellow 
humans, and is granted to none but the noble-minded 
and the pure in heart. 

“Nan,” cried Easter, abruptly, “how I hate a man 


II2 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


who has power to make one feel / and then, as hard as 
ever he can — runs away !” 

Nan coloured, hugging her bosom with her thin arms. 
Already, perhaps, she understood better what love — if 
by love you mean the universal love, is — than did her 
sister. 

“You know,” went on Easter, “it’s such a lovely 
feeling that you are the right side of the hedge, and 
don’t care a bit ; but it’s another pair of shoes to feel 
yourself at the mercy of a wretch who is probably laugh- 
ing at you all the while, and who finds it as easy as pie 
to forget jyeu, knowing that he has made it impossible 
for you to forget /iim /' ’ 

Easter was pacing restlessly up and down the tiled 
path between the geranium wall and the great tubs of 
glossy-leaved orange and lemon plants beneath the vines, 
all throbbing, palpitating, with an emotion which was 
much more nearly akin to curiosity than to slighted love, 
if she had only known it. Nan, sitting on the edge of 
the tank, held a grain of comfort in her hand for Easter, 
and could no more withhold it than she could keep back 
any other thing to make a human soul happier. 

“ Dinkie says that Basil went away because he was 
falling in love with you,” she said, “and Dinkie’ s nearly 
always right,” added Nan, proudly. 

“He went away with that woman to please himself. 
She came here to look for him — and he let himself be 
taken — O ! he has had such practice in making fools of 
us all ! It’s as easy as pie to understand Jem, but Basil 
understands women — there is just the difference. And 
as to that ridiculous idea of Dinkie’ s — O ! you can cheek 
a man into anything for the time being,” said Easter, 
gloomily, “but it isn’t a matter to look back upon with 
pride. An aggressive woman . . . What could be 
more degrading? And I’ve always cared so little about 
men — perhaps because they cared about me so much.” 

Nan looked at her sister in all the young splendour of 
her vivid beauty, instinct, too, with the mingled fire and 
softness of a passion that she struggled with, yet could 
not wholly repel, and wondered for the thousandth time 
how Basil had been able to resist her. 

“You are both so wilful,” she said, shaking her head, 


A MAN OF TODAY, 


”3 


sadly. “You want to be different from everybody else, 
though I expect you’ve got hearts much like other folks 
— poor Basil and poor Easter !“ 

‘ ‘ Why do you pity him ?’ ’ flashed out Easter. ‘ ‘ There 
is only one person in the world he ever truly and faith- 
fully loved, or will love — and that is Basil Strokoff. ’ ’ 

Nan thought of Basil as he had talked to her in the 
cellar. She always remembered people at their best, 
and forgot the rest. 

“Tm sure he tries to be good,” she said, simply, 
“and of course he isn’t always. You ain’t yourself,” 
she added, timidly, “and you lead poor Jem a terrible 
life ; but you’re muck fonder of him than you suppose.” 
“ Whatf cried Easter. 

“Yes — you are. You turn to him to do little things 
for you — and you admire him. I’ve often seen you con- 
sidering him with your head on one side, and you know 
you’ve always got him to stand by you — like the little 
ones who make faces at us from behind mother’s petti- 
coat, and I shouldn’t wonder if you don’t end up by 
being dreadfully in love with him — and quite happy.” 

“ But I don’t want to be happy. I want to know as 
much as that woman who looked at us across the ditch. 

She knows — everything worth knowing ’ ’ 

“ She doesn’t look a bit good,” said Nan, reluctantly. 
“I was coming out of a cottage when she drove Basil 
past, and they both looked — wicked. He wasn’t my 
Basil at all; and I just left poor Mary Martin,” went on 
the child wistfully, in her strange, old-world manner, 
she had been wicked, too, they said, but she looked 
quite happy lying so still with the flowers in her hands 
I’d put there. God draws them all into his bosom — the 
poor, the broken, the sad, and makes them whole — and 
I know Mary’s happy now.” 

“Nan,” said Easter, with some moisture in her eyes, 

* ‘ you are getting prosy. I should hate to die myself — 
especially if I were having a good time. The only people 
one ought to weep for are those who have never had one. 
And you haven’t helped me a bit. You are only another 
animated sign-post to point out the charms of— Jem. I 
know he is a handsome front door — and you’ve only got 
to walk in, and everything will be well furnished and gar- 
h lo* 


A MAN OF TODAY, 


I14 

nished inside — and no secrets anywhere, and Basil is a 
trap-door, down which you’d come fearful back-falls and 
probably break your neck — still, it would be exciting, 
and as long as one was alive, one would live in his com- 
pany.” 

She started, for at that moment there smote warningly 
on their ears the notes of that bell irreverently nick- 
named “Great Tom,” and set up by Mr. Denison for 
the calling together of his sons and his daughters, his 
men-servants and his maid-servants, and more especially 
for the early awakening of the latter, though having got 
used to it, they were later than ever, so that ‘ ‘ Great 
Tom” only woke up the whole town instead, and was 
loathed accordingly. 

“And if ever I do marry Jem,” said Easter, as she set 
off nimbly towards the house, “it will be to get away 
from that bell !” 


CHAPTER XVI. 

Every hour is wasted that is not spent on love.” — Vanini. 

Basil had been gone a week, and Easter was sitting 
in the Green-room window making frills — ^with Jem to 
hinder her. She really loved her needle, and was there- 
fore more than half-armed against the arch enemy, man, 
for the woman who is able to make her own frocks can- 
not possibly devote the same time and attention to a man 
as if he holds her undivided consideration ; the width of 
her skirts, not the width of his nose, the quality of the 
stuff, not that of his morals, claiming her superior atten- 
tion. 

She had allowed herself to be stalked into this cool re- 
treat because she had a devouring curiosity to know what 
was going on at Fitzwalters, to which place Jem had 
gone more than once lately, and now, as she pinned her 
work to her knee, she demanded what those people were 
doing over there? 

“Ask me another,” said Jem. “ It would be hard to 
say what they don't do. On Sunday Mrs. Hoy os got out 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


the team, put the servants inside the coach, and drove 
everybody who would go, to church ! About midnight 
they dressed up the nicest-looking boy there in the 
Marchioness’s best night bib-and -tucker, and — and ” 

Jem paused and roared. 

“I’m told the old lady’s face was a sight when she 
found him there, and heard his reasons ! She cleared out 
this morning with Biddy, and Hawkhurst is going about 
looking squashed. He says he was quite respectable till 
Lala Hoyos came ! On Saturday night we all sat round 
a sheet held tight and level with our chins, and blew a 
feather on it, and Strokoff, who was trying to grab it, you 
know, overbalanced himself, and came down plump into 
the middle of the sheet, patent leathers — and — and legs, 
you know — ^and if the servants’ hall made the row, and 
behaved as we did, why, it would get sacked, that’s all,’’ 
concluded Jem, with strong disgust. 

“ I don’t blame them,’’ said Easter, “ I should love to 
be in the midst of it all, and I’d frivol as wildly as the 
b^t of them.’’ 

^ ‘ Hawkhurst wants you all to come over to dinner, ’ ’ 
said Jem, reluctantly; “he wrote an invitation, but I 
wouldn’t bring it. I know what the Chief is, and he 
ain’t far wrong to keep you out of that set.’’ 

“ Then why don’t you keep away yourself?” 

“I can’t; Hawkhurst’ s my nearest neighbor, and 
we’re related ; besides, didn’t you make me go?” 

“All blue-blooded people are cousins,” said Easter, 
loftily. ‘ ‘ We have no relations. I suppose she is your 
cousin, too?” 

“ In a way. I can’t say I’m proud of the Hoyos as a 
connection ; still, she’s a thoroughbred, and she dresses 
in a way to give all the other women fits. Odd that the 
most dissolute women in all ages have always been the 
best dressers,” he added, meditatively. 

“Turn it the other way round,” said Easter, “and 
say that their clothes made them so attractive they 
couldn’t help being snares to your sex, and therefore 
wicked. I should say that she and Basil Strokoff made 
a pair.” 

“There are no end of pals,” said Jem. “Doesn’t 
Sallust say that to have the same desires and the same 


ii6 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


aversions is assuredly a firm bond of friendship ? And 
their tastes seem identical. They talk a shibboleth of 
their own that nobody else seems to understand, and, 
Judging by their allusions, I should say they had spent 
half their lives together.” 

‘ ‘ And constancy is the last vice of which I should have 
accused him,” said Easter. 

“There isn’t much constancy in that quarter,” said-^ 
Jem. “ She amuses him — that’s all.” 

“It’s everything. O ! Jem, how I wish I were going 
to eat my dessert off the Fitzwalters gold plate to-night ! 
To make other people happy you must first enjoy your- 
self.” 

“ So you shall when you’ve mar ” 

“ Jem !” cried Easter, precipitately, seeing that dreadful 
something in his eye winch she had successfully dodged 
so long, “ I want you to do something for me — it’s very 
simple. ’ ’ 

But she looked so sweet that Jem mistrusted her. 

“What is it?” 

“You see these frills — they’ve all got to be pinned on 
this piece of muslin ” 

Jem beamed — yards and yards of frills, and he had to 
sit beside her while she sewed them ! 

‘ ‘ And I want you just to hold these pins for me !’ ’ 

Jem, with careful laboriousness, took the pins, and laid 
them out on the palm of his broad, willing hand. It was 
a pity that a little jerk of Easter’s elbow spilt them on 
the floor just as he was opening his lips to speak, but 
when he had gone down on his hands and knees and 
picked them all up, Easter said, — 

“ That's not the way to hold pins, stupid ; you must 
put them between your teeth, like dressmakers do, you 
know, and tailors — O ! I forgot, tailors don’t use them.” 

But Jem continued to hold out the pins, and made no 
effort whatever to commit suicide by swallowing them. 
On the contrary, he nodded and smiled with a great deal 
of meaning. 

“O! very well,” said Easter, turning scarlet, and 
furious at being bowled out, “I’ll go up to mother — 
she’ll help me.” 

“No,” said Jem, trembling for his opportunity, and 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


II7 

not desiring Wrath as the handmaiden of Love, “don’t 
go away ’’ 

“Then put those pins in your mouth.’’ 

She smiled as she said it, one of those brief, bewitch- 
ing, tantalising smiles that made her altogether adorable, 
and dazzled Jem so that he took a mouthful of pins, and 
blamed himself for a fool. 

“Good boy,’’ she said, approvingly. “Now, you 
mustn’t talk, or you’ll swallow them and be choked, and 
then what would become of dear Lady Biddy?’’ 

He longed to say that Easter wouldn’t care if he did, 
but prudence restrained him, and suppressed irritation 
made his face red. Many a man might have wished 
nothing better than to sit watching this girl at her needle- 
work, always a fascinating occupation to the male eye, 
but Jem waxed restive as she drew the welting cord 
through the muslin to get the desired fulness, and he 
began to pour in the pins with a callous indifference as to 
whether she were ready or not, that soon aroused her 
indignation. 

“Jem,’’ she said, “I’m afraid you have a shocking 
bad temper !’’ Whereupon he champed the pins about 
furiously, and showed imminent signs of bolting the lot. 

“Sort them out like a good boy,’’ she said, “and 
give me one at a time, ’ ’ and so potent was her influence 
over him that he obeyed, knowing that she was fooling 
him all the while, yet one may be fooled without look- 
ing a fool, and Jem champing those pins, and carefully 
wiping them on his handkerchief before he handed them 
to her, aroused in Easter something very like admiration, 
so that once or twice when he was not looking at her, 
she stole a look at him, kindly. The folded-back win- 
dows made mirrors that reflected her own and Jem’s 
figures, also the fresh coolness of that corner of the 
garden on which the Green-room looked, and Jem’s 
morning dress, his coat, waistcoat, leggings, and the rest 
all in different tints, and in those subdued colours that he 
affected, became him extremely well, as Easter was not 
slow to observe. On the whole, a man is quite as 
dependent on the fashion of his clothes as a woman is ; 
he is but a poor creature without them, and mostly cuts 
a sorry figure as a statue, but dress him up this way, 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


Ii8 

that way, and you make him interesting or the reverse — 
just like a woman. 

Jem felt quite sure he would not be allowed to hand 
over those last pins till some interruption came from 
without, and presently he got reckless, relieved himself 
of his remaining small cargo, and, stooping down, kissed 
the little hand that was now moving so languidly at its 
task. 

“Easter,” he said, “when are you going to marry 
me?” 

“Never.” 

“In three months or so?” 

“In three centuries.” 

“That’s a promise, mind. I’ll wait.” 

“ But I don’t want to be married. It would be so — 
so dull.” 

“ How do you know? You haven’t tried it.” 

“Jem, your fate is Lady Biddy. It’s so suitable, and 
respectable and all that.” 

“ I don’t want to be respectable, I want to be happy.” 

“ So do I. That’s why I’m not going to marry you.” 

“That’s the cruellest thing you’ve said or done to 
me yet. ’ ’ 

“You should never marry a girl out of a big family if 
you want a curtain drawn over your little failings, Jem.” 

“ And I mean to marry a girl out of a big family !’^ 

‘ ‘ Marry ! marry !’ ’ cried Easter, impatiently, ‘ ‘ and 
not a word of love — not one little, little word.” 

‘ ‘ But you know all about that. My love for you is 
not a thing to talk about — it’s myself. And you know 
it, Easter.” 

Easter leaned her head back against the tall, upright 
back of the chair, covered with worsted work of her own 
manufacture. 

“But I should like to hear all about it, Jem,” she 
said. “You see, you are the very first — the very first 
man (Daddy and the boys don’t count) who ever made 
love to me !” 

“I can’t talk love to you,” he said, simply, “I can 
only love you. Where you are is my heaven, and where 
you are not is hell — that’s all. Ever since I came back. 
I’ve felt you belonged to me, even Strokofif did not 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


I19 

make me jealous, and some day you’ll come to me, 
Easter, if only because you want somebody to be kind to 
you.” 

“But I want to be burnt, Jem,” she cried, “to feel 
the fire, to suffer ; one can’t be just ‘ Yea, yea,’ and ‘ Nay, 
nay,’ and you can’t make me feel it, dear old Jem, and I 
won’t be like Hugon, who, having but one life, has never 
lived it !” 

“ Better half a life than one burnt to ashes,” said Jem ; 
“give me the chance, dear, and I’ll win you yet.” 

He took the little hand with the gold thimble on it 
and kissed it warmly, gently, as one not unaccustomed 
to the art, resolutely turning his eyes away from her 
lips, for it is only the fool or the libertine who snatches 
greedily at unripe fruit, and Jem had immense self-con- 
control, and knew how to wait, even if he desired to 
establish a first claim upon her ; and above all, he thought 
he thoroughly understood Easter. 

“ O, Jem,” she said, piteously, “ I’m so young ! I’m 
only a schoolgirl just come home for good, and I don’t 
want to be married” — she lifted an imploring little face 
to his — “and being a man, how you can want to get 
married passes my comprehension !’ ’ 

Jem pushed his chair back for safety, then laughed, 
and coming close up behind, kissed the top of her head, 
then walked off looking pleased, as if he had done 
nothing at all uncommon. 

“Jem,” said Easter, “I’ll tell you a secret. If you 
did carry me with you on your travels round the world, 
you very often forgot me !” 

“I didn’t,” said Jem, as, with hands plunged in his 
pockets, an image of able-bodied ease, he regarded her. 
“I mean — I didn’t take you as you are. I left you a 
dear little girl in short frocks — how was I to know you’d 
be dearer yet in long ones ?’ ’ 

“That’s what mother says, they take so much more 
stuff! Jem I it isn’t me, it’s this wretched complexion 
of mine you are in love with. It will be gone before I 
am twenty ” 

‘ ‘ When we shall have been married somewhere about 
two years. And, you bet, you’ll have that complexion 
still. Rummy thing,” he added, meditating, “ how Mrs. 


120 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


Hoyos’ colourlessness is one of the most fetching things 
about her, and your strong point is just the reverse ” 

‘ ‘ If there is anything I loathe, ’ ’ flashed out Easter, 
“ it is being discussed to my face.” 

“And you’d get vain if you heard all the things said 
about you behind your back,” remarked Jem. 

‘ ‘ Who says them ?’ ’ enquired Easter, in tones of as- 
suagement. 

“ Everybody.” 

“ Prince Strokoff?” 

“ Not quite such a fool with the Hoyos around,” said 
Jem, tersely. “ It’s mostly Bill Hawkhurst — and me.” 

“Jem,” said Easter, “you’re a dear. You leave all 
these lively people to come and sit with dull me, and if it 
were not for you I should hang myself for a failure. And 
now shut your eyes tight. ’ ’ 

He shut them. 

‘ ‘ Put your arms flat down to your sides like a raw 
‘recruity,’ and don’t move till I give you leave, what- 
ever happens.” 

Jem obeyed all his commanding officer’s orders with 
precision, and awaited results. He was aware of a chair 
being dragged up close to him, of a spicy smell in his 
near neighbourhood, of a butterfly touch on his brow, 
a scrambling down of a lightweight in petticoats, then a 
sound of retreating steps, mistrustful as those of mice. 

“Jem,” said a voice a long way off, “don’t open your 
eyes. I want to tell you I’ve just kissed you (it didn’t 
count when we were little, you know), which I never 
could have done if I’d been the very least bit in love 
with you. If I had been, you should have kissed me. 
But I’m very — very fond of you !” 

The door closed. Jem opened his eyes. 

‘ 'Bless her /' ’ he said. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


121 


CHAPTER XVII. 

“All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 

Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 

All are but as ministers of Love, 

And feed his sacred flame.’' 

It was the night before the First of September, and 
Basil Strokoff had not yet returned, nor let Mr. Denison 
know if he meant to keep a promise made some time ago 
that he would shoot with him on the First, and now in 
the midst of a delightful interior of colour, warmth, and 
sober richness of tone, Tom sat alone — thinking. 

All the light seemed concentrated on the polished wal- 
nut table that reflected every dish of fruit, and every 
glass and flower, rivalling in its beauty those table-cloths 
of a brilliai.t modern painter that make us long to know 
the name of the washerwoman who produces such satin 
smoothness as he has taken brush in hand to copy ! 

The girls’ dinner-napkins are thrown heedlessly down 
on the walnut-wood into which they have dipped their 
faces as in a looking-glass. From the panelled walls 
looked down those pictures that are the rich man’s chief 
furnishing, and the crucial flowers of his taste, Clytie 
showed her white, low-browed beauty on a pedestal 
against dark folds of velvet curtains, and a huge Crown 
Derby china punch-bowl caught the light with its voyant 
colours in a remote comer. 

The dark Turkey carpet, the sober green leather and 
walnut-wood chairs made the candle-lit table a very oasis 
of brightness that consorted ill enough with Mr. Deni- 
son’s mood, for he was enduring that mauvaise quart 
d'heure that few men miss in one way or another in the 
course of a lifetime, even if it has been a phenomenally 
successful one. 

And all things had prospered with Mr. Denison up to 
the present time, and now the luck had turned. Have 
the stars no power at all over our destinies ? And does 
not one of the oldest books in the world declare how the 
stars in their courses fought against Sisera, and prevailed ? 

F II 


122 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


How comes it that sometimes we are absolutely hag- 
ridden by an ill-luck that pursues us in everything that 
we touch ? Unimaginable calamities overtake us, and the 
more promptly we rise after every blow of fate — the 
heavier is the cudgel with which she again strikes us to 
earth, till at last we sink to rise no more. 

Thus Mr. Denison, who had flirted lately with Jute and 
lost forty thousand pounds in a single day, had also failed 
to win an action he had brought against a neighbour whose 
chimney-smuts defiled his rose- blooms, and in which the 
costs had amounted to a very large sum, and the first of 
these things would not have happened if he had been 
brought up to trade, for learning a business is quite a dif- 
ferent matter to learning a profession, and no man of 
birth and taste ever masters his trade-lesson quite satis- 
factorily. Tom had been extremely lucky, and made 
money very early in life, which was a pity, as it is easier 
to climb up than down — and more graceful, and his tastes 
were expensive, if not extravagant, while in the numerals 
of his family he was a spendthrift. 

He did not realise all this as he sat thinking, and look- 
ing at the ruby wine in his glass. There was a good deal 
of money left still, but he must retrench, he must put 
down some of his hunters, give up part of those well- 
stocked coverts that ran into five figures a year, and 
Maria — must learn to study economy. 

He thought of his children, these young people who 
held on the calm, ruthless tenour of their way, always 
believing that their parents must be wrong, because they 
were their parents, and they themselves right, because 
they were young, and so cocksure of everything. Among 
them all there was only one who would understand in the 
least — and that was Nan, his plainest, once uncared-for 
child. 

Why do most children’s voices grow hushed, and their 
faces grave and formal, at the father’s approach? Is it 
only the inherent cruelty of youth to age, that will not 
suffer its participation or fellowship in their pleasures, and 
that thrusts those who would love to play with them, and 
be understood of them, back into the cold shadows of 
loneliness and neglect ? 

Alas ! we are brutal, we are selfish when we are young, 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


123 


but if we could see, if we knew ourselves as such, there 
would be no springtime to our lives at all. And at the 
cost of all else, give us a few years of youth, since disil- 
lusionment begins so early, and lasts, alas ! for ever ! 

The thought came to the poor man then, as it has done 
to so many others before him, that we want our failures 
early in life, and our successes late. For youth suffices 
so amply to itself with its bounding hope, its powers of 
enjoyment, and all the glorious potentialities of its young 
blood, as to make actual surroundings almost immaterial, 
such zest does it bring to every common thing or act. 
Surely, therefore, to intoxicate youth with success is to 
paint the lily, and even partly negative that happiness 
which is so especially the heritage of youth, and occa- 
sionally of honourable old age. 

Tom sat so still that presently the door opened softly, 
and some little thieves’ heads, intent on dessert, were 
popped in. This gave him his opportunity, and for a time 
sultry weather reigned in the nurseries, the schoolroom, 
and even the kitchen, till the news that Tom’s head game- 
keeper was waiting for him in the gun-room, removed an 
explosive from the bosom of the family, while delectable 
thoughts of the morrow soothed to calmness each ravaged 
breast. 

And out of doors the saintly moon was pouring her 
white flood of false sentiment out upon the world, and the 
old rascal to whom she gave house room, and who prob- 
ably taught her most of her wicked ways, was grinning at 
the amount of folly upon which he and she looked down, 
making more colourless yet Lala Hoyos’ small face as she 
walked alone on the terrace at Fitzwalters, drawing 
through her fingers the myrtle leaves that covered the 
wall, and with a strange qualm at her heart, asking if she 
had been wise — to let him go back to the girl whom he 
had tried, but not been able, to forget ? 

And in the Penroses garden, Easter was stepping in 
and out of the long black shadows made by the poplars 
across the moon-washed lawn. She knew that her father 
expected Basil to turn up on the morrow, knew also that 
his bag and baggage were still at “The George,” but in 
her own mind felt quite sure that he would not come — 
now or ever. 


124 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


And there is only one situation that a woman of spirit 
cannot fill with credit to herself, and that is — of waiting — 
and for a man. It’s humiliating — it’s hateful — and it’s 
the unbearable reason why half the women jump up after 
they have waited what seems to them ages, take the arm 
of the nearest admirer, and disappear round the comer 
just as the right man tardily appears upon the scene. 

And feeling that she loathed him, Easter’s feet natu- 
rally took her to where she had seen Basil last, and so 
came to the gate by the meadow, where she found Hugon 
leaning her arms on the top bars, and herself lost in 
thought. 

“A penny!” said Easter, stealing softly up behind, 
her lustreless black silk gown trailing behind her, 
and bare white arms showing like lilies against it, a 
thousand beauties not to be coldly chronicled (and 
indeed not tangible, or even to be painted, else why do 
the pictures of the world’s most renowned charmers dis- 
appoint use so cruelly?), all touched with the witchery 
of a light that turned her to a dazzling transparency of 
white and rose. 

“ I was thinking about Fairmile,” said Hu^on. 

* ‘ Poor soul, ’ ’ said Easter, gently, the fret m her own 
heart teaching her sympathy. ‘ ‘ I wish you had not to 
go back there — but you must come to us again.” 

Hugon looked at the girl with eyes that seemed to say, 

‘ ‘ I have done — I know, ’ ’ while those of Easter said, ‘ ‘ I 
want to know — I will try,” and looking earnestly at her, 
and for the first time, save in response, kissed her. It 
was not a Judas kiss . . . it is in the things that we could 
say, and do not, that we prove our mastery over ourselves 
and our surroundings; the unspoken word is like the 
piece of gold changed by a spendthrift ; possessing it, he 
rules the world, in parting with it he places himself at the 
world’s mercy and is its slave. ” I left my book under 
the tree where we were sitting this afternoon,” she said, 
“I sleep so badly — and like to have something to fall 
back on — and I’m tired — will you fetch it for me?” 

Easter, to whom had always come until quite lately 
that sleep “which makes the darkness short,” glanced 
uneasily at the distant belt of trees, then back at the 
orchard where she had played her game at Touch-last, 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


125 


then tossed her head, and snatching up her long train, 
and showing a mass of snowy drapery below, set off with 
the swift ease of a yacht slipping before the wind, for — 
O, rarest accomplishment in woman ! — Easter could run, 
and now went in her finest form, a form that enabled her 
to top a five-barred gate easily, as Dinkie, who had 
recently bet against her, knew to his cost. And I don’t 
think that even the onward sweep and swell of the ocean 
breakers, or the giant race of the wind shadows chased 
by the sun across a limitless plain, equals the rhythm, 
the flow, and the beauty of the movement displayed by 
a perfectly symmetrical human animal going at full speed. 

So she sped on, and the rascally old man in the moon 
winked as she was swallowed up in the dark belt of trees 
that after the glister of light without, show to her of 
Cimmerian hue, though she really stepped on to a 
heavenly carpet cunningly traced in green and silver, 
and mysterious too as Nature’s harmonies in green and 
silver ever are, and so groped her way with outstretched 
arms that seemed to have caught some of the white light 
without, and to shine out of the black folds of her gown 
with the purity of crystal. 

Something timid, appealing, lovable was in her attitude 
— ^and also in her voice, as she said, in a whisper, ‘ ‘ Where 
is it ?’ ’ her head a little lifted, all her loveliness gathered 
up as it were in one full cup of sweetness, and clear as day 
to the eyes that watched her coming, and that changed 
and changed again at her approach. 

Basil had dined ; he had also, being in a reckless mood, 
absorbed quite as much rack- punch as was good for him, 
and was now on his way to tell Mr. Denison he had, ac- 
cording to promise, returned for to-morrow’s shoot, and 
he had not been able to forget her ... he had never 
tried harder at anything in his life, and he had not been 
able . . . and she knew of his arrival and had come to 
meet him . . . 

Many a man loves a woman outside himself, raves 
about her, dreams of her, works himself into a frenzy 
about her, but it is all outside, or on the surface ; she has 
not got to the core of his heart, cut into the very quick 
of him, and left him bleeding and at her mercy. And 
with some men the knowledge, the suspicion even, of 

II* 


126 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


being loved is the actual conception of love in themselves, 
and Basil remembered those letters he had never got, and 
a man cannot be eight-and-twenty, in a hay-scented 
meadow, and under the influence of rack -punch, and that 
rascally old moon (who is responsible for three parts of 
the folly in the world), without having his blood kindled 
when that which he covets, and into which all the gla- 
mour of the night has stolen, steals suddenly upon him 
— a gift sent straight from the gods. 

Perhaps some such exaltation came over Basil then as 
Endymion knew when after long search he came 

“ O ! joy, upon a naked waist . . 

“We were sitting here,” she said, aloud, and went 
down on one knee to sweep the ground with her arm ; 
“ Nan must have taken it in.” 

Still kneeling there, palm downwards to the grass, she 
looked up to the interlaced boughs overhead — looked up 
steadily as one to whom had come the word of command, 
“Halt !” and he who commanded must have his bidding 
done, and she would not, could not gainsay him. 

A shaft of light, darting suddenly through the leaves 
like a magic sword, made divine the pallor of a face from 
which the mere rose and white fairness had fled, and a 
long sobbing, tremulous sigh escaped her, like a low 
moan that trembles between jo)^ and pain and fear. 

Perchance that white flame pierced the clouds that had 
hung about her soul, and showed her what was there — 
and frightened her. She had been acting a part lately, 
but now she was alone, and face to face with her heart, 
and unconsciously her lips half syllabled a name — did 
they really utter it ? 

Vividly, intensely, as she had never felt it before, Basil’ s 
image projected itself on her mind, and she trembled, but 
had not power to thrust it away ; he was with her — yes — 
and she loved him — loved him . . . and in that moment 
the heat, and strength, and magic that passion lends to 
life touched her, if but passingly, and on the instant 
Basil in the flesh stood before her. 

She sprang up like a startled forest thing, and shied 
away from him, but he caught that look in &r eyes, and 
the heave of her white breast, and he cried aloud, — 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


127 


“ Good God, I love her ! Easter — Easter !” 

She half turned in her flight to find him beside her, 
pale as she, but how manly, how strong, how adorable he 
appeared ! Eagerly, yearningly, with the eternal ques- 
tion and answer of life in their eyes, they looked in each 
other’s beautiful young faces finding but love’s mirror 
there, and with all the wild glamour and intoxication of 
the night surging up in their blood, and drawing them 
irresistibly into each other’s arms, their two souls might 
in another moment have trembled together, and their lips 
have met, when a staccato voice close at hand exclaimed, — 

‘ ‘ Good evening y Miss Easter ! Lovely evening for a 
walk, ain’t it?” 

He got no reply, for Easter was gone, and Basil, livid 
with fury, was confronting the long-nosed intruder. 

“ Curse you, Gardner,” he said, ” I’ve a mind to break 
every bone in your skin. How dare you come spying 
over here after Miss Denison and me !” 

‘ ‘ Well r ’ said Daddy, who had rapidly retreated to a 
respectful distance, ‘ ‘ I like that ! Can’ 1 1 come out for a 
smoke and a stroll without having my bones disintegrated 
for wishing you ‘ Good evening ?’ I heard voices, and 
came over to see who it was — naturally !’ ’ 

Meanwhile, Basil in a whirl of conflicting passions had 
fled after Easter, whom he saw half a field ahead of him 
escaping as for dear life, but what could he say to her un- 
der present circumstances that would not have all the ab- 
surdity of an anti-climax ? So he made no eflbrt to pass 
the shadow of the trees, but his heart was full of bitter- 
ness and wrath at the meddling fool who had snatched 
from him a joy out of which no after repentance could 
have stolen the sweetness, while Easter sped on and on, 
wild tumult within her, dreading nothing so much as pur- 
suit and growing quieter when she found that none was 
attempted, so that presently she walked more and more 
slowly, and had almost mastered herself by the time she 
reached the gate. 

“ I can’t find your book, Hugon,” she said, with only 
a slight tremor in her voice ; ‘ ‘ I fancy someone must have 
come over from ‘ The George’ and attached it !” 

“You have not had time to look,” said Hugon, re- 
proachfully, “you have scarcely been gone two minutes.” 


128 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


“ Two minutes !” 

Easter repeated the words unconsciously and blankly. 
Oh ! it must have taken years at least in which she had 
learned — aye, and resolved to unlearn — a woman’s di- 
vinest lesson ! 

“Why don’t you go and look for it yourself?” she 
said, as she pushed open the gate, while all the time in 
hurrying iteration some innermost soul of her soul was 
exultantly crying, ‘ ‘ It was a narrow escape, but you are 
safe — safe ! You still belong to yourself — you are your 
own, it was only the witchery of the night, and the op- 
portunity, that were merging you into the identity of a 
man who does not even pretend to care for you — it is 
Lala Hoyos whom he loves !” 

Yet there rang- in her ears that startled awakened cry — 
a cry wrung as it were from Basil against his will, — “ My 
God — I love her !” as if he too had fought against self- 
surrender, and rebelled against it even while he yielded. 

Lala would have smiled — knowing a man’s little ways 
— especially his after-dinner ways, and never made the 
mistake of confounding a man in a passionate mood with 
a man whose mood she had made passionate, but Easter 
had no such Catholic experiences of the sex to guide her 
— there had been love, or something very like it, in Basil’s 
face just now surely. 

Yet what had he seen in hers to startle him into such 
unexpected folly ? Her cheek burned as she thought of 
how possessed with the idea of him, body and soul, she 
had been when he appeared before her ; nay, had not her 
very lips echoed the cry of her heart, and so she had 
given the sign, and herself altogether away ? 

She flew forward, pierced with the intolerable thought, 
and loathing herself as fiercely and keenly as if she had 
clamoured for his love on her knees, love that she had 
come out to fetch, and which a man has seldom the 
courage to withhold when a woman not absolutely ugly 
asks for it point-blank. 

She burrowed under the bedclothes at the hateful 
thought, then set her little teeth hard, and vowed that 
it should not master her, that she would resist to the 
death this love that made dolls of most people, and 
beasts of some. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


J2g 


And yet, methinks, that poor woman who tossed wake- 
ful on her couch but a few yards away from Easter, who 
had flung down all her treasure royally for pure love, 
asking no bond, and expecting no return, was richer, 
perhaps, than Easter, who drew back from that fiery 
furnace out of which many a sinful woman had emerged 
with soul white as snow. 

What is the sun in the sky but another form of love ? 
It shines out and we are glad, it hides its face and we 
are wretched. It draws out all hidden loveliness and 
sweets, and why should tears come to our eyes, behold- 
ing the joy it creates, unless, indeed, it is in most human 
touch with our human hearts ? 

God is Light, God is Love, God is all that fructifies in 
our heart, and warms us to our fellow-humans, and Hate 
is the Cold and Darkness in which we shudder and pine 
with curses on our lips, and despair in our hearts, long- 
ing for the day. 

“The finest art,” exclaims Joubert, “is full of life and 
hope.” And in strongest rebuke he says elsewhere, 

‘ ‘ With the fever of the senses, the delirium of the pas- 
sions, the weakness of the spirit, with the storms of the 
passing time, and with the scourges of humanity — hun- 
ger, thirst, dishonour, diseases, and death — authors may 
go on as long as they will, making novels which shall 
harrow up our hearts, but the soul says all the while, ‘ You 
hurt me. ’ ’ ’ Wherefore, let us turn our faces not towards 
the darkness, but to Light. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

“Content to see 

An unseized heaven dying at his feet. 

Content, O ! fool, to make a cold retreat.” 

In that absolutely clear mental five minutes (occasion- 
ally a fearful quarter of an hour) usually towards morning, 
when our souls sit up naked, and stare us in the face, we 
having put off the robe we wore yesterday, and not yet 
assumed the fleshly cloak of to-day, Basil opened his 


130 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


eyes, broad awake in the fresh country bedchamber with 
its dimity curtains, and having cursed the rack-punch 
that the moon had transformed into a love-philtre, asked 
himself, with almost brutal cynicism, where, if Daddy 
Gardner had not come when he did last night, he — Basil 
Strokolf — would be now ? 

Up to that time Easter had shown as much control of 
herself as he had done, and that a girl in one of the prov- 
inces should acquire by intuition what only the severest 
discipline could teach a man of the world, was in itself a 
somewhat baffling and irritating fact, so that when he had 
caught her at unawares, and for a moment she had seemed 
to be plastic, almost the instrument of his will, he had 
exulted over her weakness, while her loveliness had 
appealed to his senses, and made him feel. She was no 
longer impersonal to him, to be admired like a flower or 
a sunset, she was a woman — more, she was adorable — and 
Basil divided women into two classes, the adorable, and 
the not to be adored, and for him the former class did not 
exist. 

Well, he had had this fever often before, and recovered, 
and would recover again. ‘ ‘ The best way to overcome 
our passions is to indulge them,” says the cynical St. 
Evremonde, and Ruskin declares there is more time 
wasted in resisting temptation than in anything else on 
earth, only Basil could not in this instance so cure him- 
self, and to him marriage was a horror ; he knew himself 
thoroughly, what he could do, and what he could not, 
and the woman was not born to whom he could swear 
faithfulness. It is the same with many other men — and 
they marry all the same — but he had queer ideas on that 
point, and would not swear falsely. He had the misfor- 
tune to realise the fact, and the courage not to shut his 
eyes to it, and his training did not fit him to be that which 
every model wife or husband must be — narrow. 

And if to the girl every step is unknown, delicious, to 
the man it is the same old mill round — he knows it all 
beforehand, every step and turning, even when he is 
showing her the way for the first time, and oftentimes he 
grows so sick of it, that he deliberately goes out of his 
way to avoid any influence that will throw out of due 
proportion the other amusements of his life. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


The man who has not learned to say “No” has not 
mastered the first lesson in manliness, or taken the first 
step on that path of strenuous endeavour that leads to 
success. He will go through life a weather-cock, jeered 
at by all, and to himself a hollow wind-bag instead of a 
sturdy man who makes a wall of his own backbone. 

And Basil had sternly said “ No” to many things he 
had greatly desired in his life, perhaps it was because 
he had neither to say “No” nor “Yes” to Lala Hoyos 
that she had made herself in a way indispensable to him, 
though he knew very well that if it came to the question 
of a life-long companionship with her, he would uncom- 
promisingly answer in the negative. 

And Easter was a temptation. On revient toujours, 
and he had come back to his first impression of her — a 
little school girl out walking at Fairmile who had violently 
attracted him — and he was difficult of attraction, and all 
his life long had never cared much for anything he could 
get easily —this being perhaps the only touch of common- 
place in his character. 

And the verve and abandon with which she had played 
that game of Touch-last tingled in his veins yet. She 
had left him hungry — and a man will recollect to the frac- 
tion of an inch the piece of bread he coveted when he 
was starving, and forget the many plats of which he par- 
took, when fiill. 

And if he had caught her, and beaten her that night, 
or if he had kissed her under the apple-trees when Daddy 
surprised them, Basil would not, for he knew himself well, 
be thinking of Easter now. 

He had not been able to forget her. He had inter- 
posed Lala between himself and the girl — ^and the girl 
had shown clean through the woman as through a trans- 
parency, and vermeil-tinted, radiant with a loveliness 
surely more of earth than Heaven, her eyes alight with 
something that he had kindled there, for which he was 
responsible, Easter seemed to stand as if summoned in 
the flesh at that very moment before him. 

He had brought that look there. It was a look that 
he knew — with all the promise and the failure, the glory 
and the disillusion that some men can contemplate un- 
moved — but that Basil never could, and even denied 


132 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


himself, and went out of his way to avoid . . . and this 
was a debt of honour, and how was he to pay it honour- 
ably ? It did not occur to him to run away again to 
Lala, and excuse himself with a lie to Mr. Denison, and 
he had timed himself here for two days, and after that 
was not going on to Scotland, as Jem supposed, but on 
serious business to Russia, that inclement stepmother 
who gives back so little for the blood, the treasure, and 
the love her children lavish upon her, yet to whom the 
heart of the true Muscovite ever turns with unspeakable 
longing, while dearer to him than all the glories of the 
earth are her dreary steppes and desolate plains. 

And it is strange but true, and probably one can say it 
of no other mother country, but Russia, proud and 
exacting, takes precedence in her children’s hearts of 
even the love of women, and men will walk over the 
hearts and bodies of those who worship them, to pass on 
and serve her — to inscribe their names as martyrs of 
“ the coming Russia.” 

Perhaps it was because of this shadow, projected 
grimly out of the future on his path, that Basil had long 
ago decided that no legal bonds should ever shackle him. 
Had he wished for family ties, if his happiness had laid 
in that direction, I think he would have gone and lived 
in the East, where a man’s moral character compares so 
favourably with that of his timid, law-bound, yet law- 
defying brothers of the West. The man in the East has 
several wives, and there is no sin, no scandal. The 
wives know their position, the man knows his — there is 
complete dignity on both sides — and truth. And natu- 
rally each woman makes herself as agreeable as possible 
to that man in the hope that she may be first. With the 
Europeans, on the contrary, the same polygamous life is 
lived, but in secret, with all the attendant and degrading 
circumstances of a life founded on deceit and lies. In 
the end nearly everybody is found out, and then come 
recriminations, violences, retaliations in kind of speech 
and action, disgrace, and sometimes murder, and all 
because we are too cowardly to look things squarely in 
the face. And if we will not do that, let men learn self- 
control, even as frail women learn it, or let all good 
women refuse to give their hearts where they cannot 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 133 

look Up to a man with that thrill of pride that is worth 
all the love and passion she has it in her to feel. 

Basil ended by doing what most men in difficulties 
(and few women) do — he fell asleep. When he woke up 
because he was called, he thought first and with positive 
refreshment of Nan, whose influence had sometimes 
asserted itself at awkward moments at Fitz waiters, and 
when he had got into his shooting clothes, laid out over 
night by a reproachful valet who immediately returned to 
Town, Basil breakfasted, then walked through the town 
to Penroses. For once the house-door was open, and 
Basil could hear prayers going on in the breakfast room 
on the right, and he heard something else too, a rush of 
feet down the stone stair-case, and guessed that it was 
some laggard descending, all too late, and the next 
moment Easter ran head-foremost into his arms. She 
was all warm and lovely with sleep, but conscious only 
of her shabby shoes, her pink calico jacket, while he 
was sweeping her very soul for something in it that he 
feared, but did not wish to find ... it was not there 
. . . and he drew a long breath of relief. She did not 
love him — therefore he loved her. 

Tom’s voice ceased. The First had curtailed the 
Prayer Book. A door opened sharply — the servants 
filed out. Prayers were over, and Basil and Easter 
walked into the breakfast room together. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

“ To deal with proud men is but pain, 

For either must ye ficht or flee, 

Or else nae answer make again. 

But play the beist, and let him be.” 

To cross a mixen to enjoy the pleasures of melancholy 
is not a poetical proceeding, but the stress and worry of 
a large family will excuse anything, and Easter, escaping 
that afternoon to the tallet, a roomy apartment devoted 
to hay and straw over the stable, made pious ejaculations 
mainly recognisant of her own cleverness in discovering 

12 


134 


A MAN OF TO^DAY. 


such a hiding-pluce, as she climbed the wobbly ladder that 
gave entrance to it. 

She paused at the top, and thrust out her foot in its 
neat stocking — her most passionate regret being that she 
had not worn her second-best shoes that morning. Not 
what you felt, but ‘ ‘ What did you wear ?’ ’ is the first 
question asked by one maiden of another when hearing a 
love story — at least until she is turned twenty. 

“I had on a pink cotton jacket and an old skirt,” 
thought Easter, though Basil’s glance had shown her to 
herself, sweet as a meadow at five o’ clock in the morn- 
ing, “ and you may be tidy all the year round without a 
soul to see you, and a slut when it’s death to you not to 
look your very best ! The woman he is used to don’t 
get up at all — their maids put them together by degrees 
— and Basil has seen a good many heads curled and — 
put on, or he wouldn’t have looked so astonished at the 
way that honeysuckle came off without me /’ ^ 

She stopped thinking, for wheels were turning in at the 
barken gates — dog-cart wheels — and what earthly ill luck 
could bring the Chief back so early ? 

The next moment a man’s voice shouted for a groom, 
and she shrank back electrified ; for the voice was Basil’s, 
and he was evidently alone — alone, and pray who had he 
come to see ? 

Apparently no one responded, for she heard him get 
out, open the stable door, and then — and then she peeped 
over to see him on the other side of the mixen, stooping 
to pick up a handkerchief, and before she could stir he 
had looked up, seen her, and in a flash the steps beneath 
her were trembling under his weight. 

She retreated before that vigorous ascent, and in sheer 
self-defence sat down on a truss of hay that yielded a 
cloud of fine aromatic dust, which half choked and blinded 
her, and so powerfully does discomfort affect even matters 
of love, that with intense irritation Easter thought how 
suitable it was for the farce she and Basil had been play- 
ing, that it should begin and end — in a sneeze. 

The sneeze came, and she felt that she loathed him, 
for a true woman would rather not be seen at all than in 
a ridiculous situation, and then she remembered her clean 
white frock with a sense of comfort — also her shoes. 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


135 


He came and stood over against her. 

“ I wanted to see you,” he said, “ so I left your father 
and Burghersh shooting over the coverts of Wynyard’s 
Gap, took French leave with the dog-cart” — he paused 
— ” but I suppose if you had not happened to drop your 
pocket-handkerchief I should not have found you at all.” 

Easter’s heart hardened. Had she not been dropping 
her handkerchief to him all the way along, and now was 
she to be grateful because at the eleventh hour he picked 
it up ? 

She had turned away from him, and he could see 
nothing but the lovely curves of her neck, and part of 
her cheek, rose-soft against the dark locks about which 
the dusty motes flew, and I think that at the moment it 
was her intense femininity that appealed most strongly to 
him, for femininity is almost an obsolete art, even as 
masculinity is so rare as to evoke our warmest admiration 
when we do come across it. 

He did not know what he had come here to say. He 
only knew that standing in his “warm corner,” an im- 
perious desire to see her had laid hold of him, and he 
had obeyed it, as he did most instincts, and now there 
was nothing to do but offer her an apology for not being 
able to love her sufficiently, to beg forgiveness for the 
insult he had offered her in coming to Penroses, and 
pass out of her life — never to come into it again. 

She felt that coldness in the air, knew by an intangible 
something that this was not love, not love, he had come 
to tell her, and through all her humiliation the warm, 
nostril-tickling smell of the hay irritated her intensely 
. . . who shall say that we are not slaves to senti- 
ment, and that the cool dewy scents of a meadow trans- 
figured by moonlight had not as much to do with Easter’ s 
yielding mood overnight, as this intolerable atmosphere 
with making her think Basil, and everything to do with 
Basil, detestable? 

‘ ‘ Let me pass, ’ ’ she said, with a gesture in which was 
the pride of Lucifer, and with a tingling sense in her 
whole body that this was Lala’s lover who had come 
here to make a sport of her, and to laugh at her to his 
heart’s content with Lala afterwards. 

He barred her way — he had no idea of letting this 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


136 

wild, beautiful thing, out of whom he had struck fire at 
last, go so easily, and his eyes seemed to illuminate her to 
herself as some high-mettled show creature to be valued, 
not for that inner indestructible self that was her own, 
and no accidental gift of Nature, but for the pleasure she 
was able to afford the beholder, and every drop of blood 
in her body boiled at the thought. 

“You brute!” she said, and struck him with her 
whole force full on the cheek. 

“If you do that again, Easter,” he said, without 
blenching, “Fll kiss you,” and then he saw that the 
tears were streaming down her cheeks, and shame filled 
his soul. 

“ Dear little woman,” he cried, distractedly, “ hit me 
again. I’m a beast and a devil, and I came to ask you 
to forgive me, and I’ve insulted you worse than ever.” 

But Easter sobbed on, the crown of her dark head 
close to her shoulder, all the wounded pride, and fret, 
and waiting of the past weeks sweeping in storm through 
her soul, and Basil could do nothing but take his pun- 
ishment like a man, since he dared not offer the only 
consolation in his power. And yet, how well a man 
might have loved her if . . . if . . . 

“I’ve been a sweep right through,” he said, “and I 
can’t make myself any different. I am not fit to tie 
yours or any good woman’s shoestring. Will you just 
say, ‘ I forgive you, Basil, and God bless you?’ I don’t 
suppose He will, but it would do me a lot of good if you 
could S3.Y it.” 

She looked up in his face, but her lips trembled, and 
no words came. For a moment I think that the help- 
lessness of love — real love — touched her, and he knew it, 
and trembled ; but the momentary loss of his self-mas- 
tery gave her back hers, for she quietly unlocked the 
hands that were drawing hers greedily up to his breast. 

“ Good-bye, Basil, and God bless you !” she said. 

She heard his swift feet descending the ladder, so might 
hasten a man hard pressed for his life, and face down- 
wards on the hay Easter wept her heart out for what she 
did not desire, but longed most passionately to call her 
own. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


137 


CHAPTER XX. 

“ Learn to mak’ your bed, Annie, 

And learn to tie your lane ; 

I got thee as a waif woman, 

I’ll leave thee as the same.” 

‘‘And then,” said Eighteen-and-a-half, in a fine care- 
less way, ‘ ‘ things got horrid. The Chief was morose 
and unbearable, mother like a wet blanket — the shavers 
were insulting, and, as Dinkie said, ‘ We should soon be a 
Book of Lamentations, our loose leaves floating about the 
world.’ But Jem was always cheery, and kind, and when 
he asked father to give his consent to our getting married 
— in case he got mine — what do you think the Chief did ? 
Swore he’d never give his consent to my marrying any- 
body ! Of course, this made Jem almost desirable, and 
when a man is importunate, and a nuisance, and always 
worrying you to run away with him, why, what can you 
do but marry him to get rid of him? So we ran. We 
ran rather a long way for fear father should catch us ; but 
I wonder you haven’t heard all about it !” 

This conversation owed its untrammelled ease to the 
fact that Jem, immediately after arriving at Fairmile with 
Easter, had been sent out for a walk, and told to come 
back in an hour’s time. Now, imagine the easy uncon- 
cern with which a young woman sends her victim tramp- 
ing about in all weathers while she sits cosily within doors 
talking confidentially with a friend ; and just fancy if he 
told her to take herself off, and not come back till he and 
his pal had done their smoke and gossip ! It is in the ro- 
bust exercise of such privileges as these that one occa- 
sionally feels the privilege of being a woman. 

‘‘And where were you married?” enquired Hugon, 
who, in the dull school parlour, that told nothing of 
human life or enjoyment, looked less like a woman than 
a suppressed identity in her coarse black gown. 

“Jem got a special license,” said Easter, ” and carried 
it about in his pocket for months, only I didn’t know it. 
One day, when everything at home had been maddening, 
12* 


138 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


and a fearful row was on about my last new frock, which 
I had carefully forgotten to tell mother about, and Dinkie 
had been nasty, and said he wasn’t going to imperil his 
immortal soul by getting any more citrons and having 
them put down in the family bills, Jem said to me, ‘ Come 
over to the Shaw, dear, and you shall have as many new 
frocks and preserved citrons as ever you like, so go and 
put on your hat.’ ‘ I will, Jem, I will,’ I said, and what 
did he do but drive me round to a funny little office a 
couple of miles away, where a funny little old man mar- 
ried us ” 

‘ ‘ The registrar ?’ ’ 

‘ ‘ I suppose so, and I with only a blue serge frock on, 
and an old fur cap and boa, and out we walked, man and 
wife ! Jem had got a wedding ring in his pocket — isn’t 
it a thick one? — he really did it all very neatly, and I 
quite admired him for it ! 

“We didn’t dare to show up at the Shaw,” concluded 
Easter, loosening the rough black furs in which she glowed 
like a moss cup — that wax-like wonder of purest carmine 
(found oftenest in bogs, and requiring as sedulous a search 
as Truth herself) that is the nearest approach in Nature 
to translucent human flesh, for the colour seems to breathe 
outward, as if a light were behind it, even as the glory of 
young blood in a fresh young face. “And it was just as 
well we did not. Father raised Cain, pulled all the blinds 
down, as if there had been a death in the family, allowed 
no one to go to church the following Sunday, and formally 
erased my name from the family concordance ! Then he 
gave everybody except mother chapters in the Bible to 
learn, kicked Sweet William round the premises, had 
some fun with all the fire-irons and crockery, and gradu- 
ally recovered. We only came back from abroad yester- 
day — it rather took the edge off it, you know — going 
abroad. ’ ’ 

“ Took the edge off it !” Hugon repeated the words — 
blankly. 

“Well, you see,” said Easter, frankly, “it’s dull — I 
miss Nan and the boys — and even to catch Bunkulorum 
eating snails would be something, I hadn’t really time to 
get sick of those at home, there were too many of them. 
Now, what person, or dish, or gown could you live with 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


139 


Straight on end, for ever and ever, and not get sick of? 
If I were a woman of fashion I’d change my furniture and 
the colour of my hair at least once a month, and I’m not 
sure I wouldn’t change my husband, too, sometimes !” 

“ I daresay,” said Hugon. 

Her voice matched the lean room, the bare table, the 
crayon-decked walls, the Prayer Book and Bible that lay 
on a small table near ; one felt instinctively that the Cal- 
vary should be hanging on the wall as the spiritual 
epitome of this sad woman’s life, who yet was intensely 
human, and trying with all her might to keep calm, for 
the strain upon Hugon was growing greater with every 
hour. When you do what is within your power, nature 
looks on, pleased and happy. But when you try to do 
more, the instinct of self-preservation asserts itself and 
cries, “Stop!” and because you don’t or can’t, spoils 
your spirits, and your temper, and you worry other people, 
while everybody exclaims what a brute you are 1 It is 
only Nature’s way of rebelling against unjust burdens. 
Nature, who is artistic, and revolts at pain, not even 
admitting it in her scheme of earthly happiness. 

Easter felt the atmosphere depressing, and looked out 
at the bald-headed croquet ground from which all signs 
of summer occupation were now gone, and round which 
ran the moderately high wall that had supported the arms 
and chins of almost every young man in the neighbour- 
hood, when she adorned the school, but now weeds grew 
in the crevices, and the garden mould of the houses on 
either side grew flowers instead of footsteps. 

‘ ‘ But he is a dear old thing, ’ ’ cried Easter, in a burst 
of repentance, and ‘ ‘ probably he is no duller as a husband 
than any other man would be I He has deteriorated, of 
course — too much happiness makes everybody deteriorate 
— and I’m in agonies he is developing a tendency to fat^ 
still he’s as good as possible, and when I don’t see too 
much of him, he hardly bores me at all I Of course one 
doesn’t want a man in town — but I’m looking forward 
with real dread to his undiluted company at the Shaw !” 

“Yet we never get tired of ourselves, Easter,” said 
Hugon, gravely. 

“ Of course not ; that’s so easy, because we love our- 
selves, and we know our own good points as no one else 


140 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


possibly can, and it’s quite different. I do believe dulness 
is at the bottom of pretty well every crime and bHise in 
the world. ’ ’ 

“ So it is a bHise?'' said Hugon, grimly. 

Easter did not reply, she had gone to the window and 
stood looking out. “Do you remember,’’ she said, 
“how Betsy and Harriet put their knees to vile usage 
in picking up the Catherine-wheels, and rockets, and 
things, those young men fired off on the fifth of Novem- 
ber — all for me — and how I slept peacefully through 
everything on the other side of the house, and never saw 
one of them ? And the letters fastened to the door-post, 
all slants and black lines, which you could only read if 
you held the sheet almost upside down, and the ardent 
love songs supposed to come from the music-seller ?’ ’ 

She paused, and her glance wandered to the Prayer 
Book as if it evoked certain memories. 

“It looks like my old one,’’ she said, “the one in 
which Basil hid his love-letters.” 

Hugon looked at the girl as uncomprehendingly as 
one stone gargoyle might at another. 

“So you wear your big black hats still, Easter,” she 
said. 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Burghersh, absently. “Hugon, I 
want to tell you something. When I was being married 
to Jem, if I had looked round, and Basil had come in 
at the door and called to me, I should have pulled my 
hand out of Jem’s and gone to him — there ! But now,” 
she added, triumphantly, ‘ ‘ he has no influence over me 
— none ! I could meet him, and be kind to him, and 
even like him, but I shall never be in the least afraid of 
him again ! And I’ve come to the conclusion that if 
you don’t let anything— love, or disease, or worry — 
catch on to you, but keep moving — always moving — 
you may be tired, but you won’t be ill of it ! And it 
was a splendid idea,” she went on, with that lilt in her 
voice peculiar to young things who think they have suf- 
fered, but have certainly gathered no experience from 
their sufferings, “going abroad; after all, those poor 
Johnnies who call a music hall, a painted face, a bottle of 
champagne, or a fracas ‘seeing life,’ are not so far 
wrong— poor silly Johnnies that they are— for it is move- 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


141 

merit — it is not sitting down, and stagnating — do you 
ever see him now ?’ ’ she added, abruptly, and turning her 
head away. 

“Jem? You have taken very good care that I shall 
not,” said Hugon, wilfully misunderstanding her. 

Jem ! O, I’ll send him down on the next half- 
holiday to spend the whole of it with you ! It will be 
such a treat to get rid of him ! Come in,” she added, 
impatiently, as that gentleman entered the drawing-room 
much as a big St. Bernard may who is anxious to propi- 
tiate, but fearful of certain feline dangers of which he has 
previously had some experience. 

“It’s awfully cold out of doors,” he said, looking 
very nipped and blue. “ Have you two nearly had 
your talk out, because I’m afraid our train leaves in half- 
an-hour ?” 

He did not even see Hugon, his face was turned 
towards his wife, not to one side, or so as to lose the 
least bit of her, but aware of her only, as she flourished 
the ends of her boa at him. 

“Come, persuade Hugon to return to town, and do a 
play with us to-night— for, if we have been dull, she has 
been duller !” explained Easter. 

Jem kissed her. It was one of those ways that she 
could not get him out of, and even while he put his hat 
down, his eyes never left her — faithful as the sheep dog 
to the face of his master. 

“Jem,” said Easter, frowning, “you are hopeless. 
Are we always to be ’Arry and ’Arriet in public? 
Doesn’t he make a capital Johnnie?” she added, sur- 
veying him; “there’s nothing like a first-rate tailor 
for finishing a man, if Nature has given him a good 
start !” 

“How do you think she is looking?” said Jem, 
addressing Hugon. After all, there was no help for it, 
Easter was at the top of everything and he couldn’t open 
his mouth but she popped out. 

“ But you don’t look at all well yourself,” he added, 
kindly, as he withdrew his eyes from Easter to take a 
cursory glance at the governess. “You had much better 
come back with us to Long’s — I’m sure the old ladies 
would let you.” 


142 


A MAN OF TODAY, 


Hugon smiled faintly, and shook her head. 

“ Come down, both of you, and see me when you can. 
Do you stay long?” 

”0, some little time,” said the young beauty, care- 
lessly, and Jem’s face fell. “There are my things ” 

She paused, feeling by instinct all the danger and 
solemnity of a country girl plunged unprepared into the 
immorality of — clothes. 

“And they will take all your life,” said Hugon, who 
knew that in sumptuary laws Easter never erred. ‘ ‘ Per- 
haps be ” she stopped, having almost said, “the 

saving or the ruin of you.” 

‘ ‘ And they are so fascinating, ’ ’ said Easter, eagerly. 
“ It is so odd to find out that one has never even tried on 
before the colours that suit one best !” 

Jem looked admiringly at his wife, as if she were dis- 
coursing with the wisdom of Solon, and indeed that touch 
of folly, without which no woman can be well loved by 
man, was encouraged by Jem in Easter, for it is the weak- 
nesses of these rare and costly creatures that put them 
more on a level with poor ordinary man. 

“Talk of the Gunnings,’’’ said Jem, inflating his chest 
proudly, “you should just see the people fall on their 
noses when Easter comes along — the very men I know 
don’t see me, in looking at her ! But we must be off, 
darling ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Silly old man !’ ’ said Easter, as he put her nodding 
black hat on crooked, and she went to the glass to put it 
straight, ‘ ‘ but he has one virtue — he is not a tidy man, 
an odious creature who is always putting the blinds and 
screens straight, and you too, very likely ! Good-bye, 
dear. I’ll come again the very first minute I have — tell 
the old ladies I’m awfully sorry they were out !” 

And in a final skirmish of attempted and repudiated 
caresses, the handsome young couple crossed the hall, 
and went down the steps, and without a single backward 
look, frolicked out of sight. 

A bitter March wind tore at and hustled Hugon’ s coarse 
gown, and the cold struck its talons cruelly into her 
breast, but she did not feel it as she went back into the 
house, for her thoughts were turned inward — directed at 
something that she felt to be there, but which yet eluded 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


143 


her, and must be dragged forth alone, with no human eye 
upon her. 

She went swiftly up the staircase, and into a room that 
was not even all her own, and standing in the middle of 
it stood perfectly still, drew a deep, long breath — and knew. 

The knowledge went through her like fire, and she 
tingled with its strength, thrilled with its ecstacy . . . 
she loved, and her love was her own. She did not even 
think of the object as a possible sharer in it, hers were 
the joys, the intense riches of it, and she let the flood fill 
and overflow her heart as it would ... for once in her 
life of starved, resisting senses she was wise, and offered 
no resistance ... it had its way. 

Enveloping her like a flame from heaven, whether to 
burn her life in ashes or ennoble it through supremest joy 
and suffering, who shall say? For Love the creator is 
ofttimes the destroyer too. Only this I know, that she 
could not help it — that Love does not ask you if you will 
receive him, and if you can hold parley with him — if you 
can demand his credentials, and coldly examine them, 
then he is not Love, but Love’s bastard brother, and has 
not power to inspire you with the strongest instinct im- 
planted in the human breast. 

/e7n . . . only Jem. Only a kind, manly fellow, who 
had always been good to her — ^whom she had got used 
to, till it had half killed her to do without him. Easter’s 
lover — Easter’s husband — nothing to the stranger- 
woman, if to her he was — /e7n. To others he might 
seem an ordinary man — but she knew better. Bit by bit 
his character had revealed itself to her— though it was 
not for his character that she loved him, but because, 
through him, her birthright of humanity — her faith in 
human nature, had been restored to her ; because in him 
she found the godship, not the predatory and baser in- 
stincts of man. 

For so it is, and ever will be, that the woman who has 
been violently tempted in the worst part of her nature, is 
more prone to fall through her higher instincts than she 
who has felt no such violent recoil against evil, and there- 
fore is incapable of appreciating the good, and, but for 
Hugon’s past, she could not have idealized Jem as she 
did — or deemed him so worthy of worship. 


144 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


Memory was plucking even now at her skirts — cruel 
memory that takes all the heart out of us, and for ever 
and ever is the murderer of hope, and the bane of all 
strenuous endeavour. How many of us do not pray 
passionately every day, “ Take away memory, dear God, 
that for ever clutches us down when we put out our 
whole strength to climb up to Thee, Thou, who gavest 
Hope, unloose from us the fetters of the past !” We 
could be new men and women to ourselves, and influence 
others for good, were we suffered to forget the many 
blunders we have committed, and dare to look forward 
to the glorious things that we feel, and know we have 
the power in us to accomplish, if only that burden might 
fall from us. . . . But it may not. 

Only for once, Hugon rose above hers, for few women 
have the capacity to love as boundlessly as she loved, 
and merely to have that power was, as she somehow 
divined, not to have lived in vain. The cup that will 
contain the greatest measure of sorrow is fashioned also 
to hold an equal amount of joy, and no matter what this 
woman’s sins might be, love had reckoned her soul a 
meet instrument on which to strike his fullest, richest 
chord, and the music would go on for ever, helping to 
swell the world’s harmony, long after the instrument 
itself was broken. 

Love had come to her — to her, the poor, the despised. 
. . . Pity her not, O ! careless, happy ones of the earth, 
over-surfeited with worship, for, after all, God has not 

E assed this woman by, and for a brief space at least she 
as “won the hills of heaven.” The joy of giving — so 
infinitely greater than that of receiving, is hers, and she 
asks no more ; for that is the glory of true love, that he 
brings his own blessing with him, and turns the barest 
dungeon into a treasure-house meet for God. 

It will not endure ... all too quickly will its glory 
fade and pass . . . but, O ! to have known that joy — 
to have once entered into that kingdom, even if you 
must pass out of it with bitter weeping — is to have abso- 
lutely fulfilled the one law that Christ gave unto us, 
“ Love one another.” It is only a leap from the state of 
mind in which one goes on living, because it is less trouble 
than dying, to the highest pinnacle of human happi- 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


145 


ness, and there is only one influence, earthly, heavenly, 
human, or spiritual, that can enable you to take it — and 
that is Love. Hugon had taken that leap blindfold, and 
no matter what had been before, or might come after, she 
had, for however brief a space, tasted the highest good. 

A school-bell rang. Hugon rose from the ground on 
which she had sunk — no longer poor : her eyes 

“ Have seen a new tinge in the western skies . . . The world 
has done its duty.” 


CHAPTER XXL 

r 

There is a wheel in human affairs, which, continually revolving, 
does not suffer the same person to be always successful. ’^Herod- 
otus. / 

There was a sharp touch in the air that made Jem 
think, by some odd law of association, of the frost spar- 
kling on cabbage leaves, or the congealed dew in a be- 
lated October raspberry, and yet the time of year was 
early spring, and the place was somewhere about the 
middle of Bond Street — that narrow, ill-built, cosy, inti- 
mate thoroughfare which may be likened to a microscope, 
under which you observe your friends, and they you, so 
impossible is it to overlook anything or anybody — where- 
fore is it so beloved. A causerie, a flirtation — ^a little 
shopping — a display of one’s horses, one’s frocks, or 
one’s new man — can be conducted there with a com- 
pleteness impossible in any other town resort, and, de- 
pend upon it, the reason the Mall ceased to be the fashion 
was because it was too big for the proper study of man- 
kind — and his clothes. 

“It’s like being in one’s own kitchen garden,” said 
Jem, snuffing up the air with keenest relish, “it’s the 
wind that does it,” and he held on to his hat with both 
hands, while Easter clung to her furs. “ Good old 
wind !’ ’ and in thought he followed it over his own 
hedgerows and furrows, where it was hustling bud and 
seedling into busy, all-absorbing life, and shouting out 
G k 13 


146 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


its cry of ‘ ‘ Hurry ! Hurry !’ ’ to which a million voices 
responded with “Here ! Here !” so glad were they to be 
called — so rejoiced to be there to answer ! 

For, if the sun be the source of warmth, of life, of 
creation, is not the wind God’s own spirit breathing 
itself into our souls, a living mediator between Him 
and us. 

Nature is never so transcendently lovely when the 
wind has lain down to sleep, as when with all its airs and 
graces it plays about her. Where would be the bravery 
of her green flags and pennons without the wind to un- 
scroll them ? Where the perfume in flower and leaf, did 
not the breeze rifle and scatter them abroad ? Even the 
shadow that sweeps across the plain in a single stride is 
more wind than cloud, and half the surprises, the play 
of light and shade that chase the earth with smile and 
frown, are not sun effects at all, but frescoes painted by 
the wind. 

Easter ought to have been a fishmongeress by trade, 
for she never could get past that scent of salmon and 
lemon-juice, just dashed with violets, that seems sui gen- 
eris to a Bond Street fish shop, but she tore herself 
away at last, and Jem’s face and hers showed clear as 
two suns among the murky-skinned folk around, to one 
of two people who were sauntering slowly towards them. 

The man was looking at something on the other side 
of the street, but as the two couples came abreast of 
each other, the wind seizing Easter’s boa, and un- 
doubling, and twisting it like a snake, lassooed and made 
prisoner — Basil Strokoff. 

He put up his hands to free himself, faced round, and 
saw only Easter — Jem seemed to have melted into the 
surrounding throng — his eyes flashing unmistakable joy 
as he took her hand, and searched her face for some sign 
of those tears he so vividly remembered. 

“Pray introduce me,’’ said Lala’s cold voice at his 
elbow, and he did so — as Miss Denison. 

“Not Miss Denison,’’ said Jem, advancing apparently 
out of the nearest shop-window, ‘ ‘ Melons is Miss Deni- 
son now !” 

For a moment everything round Basil faded. He had 
refused to pay the highest price a man can pay for his 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


147 


fancy — some one else had bought it, and it was happy. 
There was no mistaking the happiness of the dazzling 
white and rose face under its fur hat, and over the eyes 
was drawn a curtain, wifely or otherwise, that he had 
no power to lift, even had he so willed it. 

“Have you been long in town?’’ said Lala Hoyos, 
with that intonation which at once fixes a woman’ s status 
in the world, ‘ ‘ and where are you staying ?’ ’ 

“We came back the day before yesterday. We are 
at Long’s.’’ 

“And I may call, I suppose?’’ said Lala, languidly, 
who had mapped out a whole plan of campaign in less 
than a minute, for a woman will go quivering through 
the whole gamut of human hopes, and fears, and joys, 
while a man is putting on his boots, or anathematising an 
ill-cut coat. She is capable of doing this many times in a 
day, and reaping glorious victories, and suffering desper- 
ate defeats without the colour in her cheek ever changing, 
or a single cry escaping her lips. 

“Certainly.” 

Easter’s voice was indifferent. She, too, was preoc- 
cupied, and studying Basil in the totally new character 
of a man about town. His coat was a mystery — the 
light upon his hat had never shone on land or sea, and 
her eyes sought Jem, and mutely reproached him and 
his tailor combined. 

“Will you come and dine to-morrow?” said Lala, 

‘ ‘ deadly dull, of course, in Lent, but you must feed some- 
where, and why not with us ?’ ’ 

“We are going to a play,” said Easter, with the faint- 
est accent on the ‘ ‘ we’ ’ that scored a black mark under 
the “us.” 

Yet she was so new to everything that she changed 
colour, sweetly and softly as the dawn comes up in the 
sky, and “There’s nothing on earth,” thought Lala, 
‘ ‘ that makes such a fool of a man (through his eyes) as 
colour.” The habit of arriving is easy, the art of getting 
yourself away gracefully requires assiduous practice, and 
as Basil’s hat was seldom on his head, and Lala seemed 
to know five out of every six persons who passed, the 
knot on the pavement seemed somewhat difficult to 
untie. 


148 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


“Who is the new beauty?” eagerly enquired one of 
Basil’s friends in his ear. 

“ No one you know,” said Basil. His pliant lips were 
calm as usual, some people wear their emotions outside 
— some in. Basil belonged to the former class. 

When at last they divided, uncomfortably, not like the 
human puppets who are stowed away nightly in their 
box to meet again shrieking, and dancing on the mor- 
row, to begin over again their pantomime of yesterday, 
Basil put Lala into her carriage, and did not return with 
her to lunch — as usual. 

“ I must make friends with the woman,” she thought, 
as her horses traversed the short distance to Park Lane. 
“I wonder who turns her out?” (She was herself the 
best turned-out woman in town.) Basil had not missed a 
single point in Easter, but men, as a rule, skip detail, 
though nearly always the whole effect of a woman’s 
beauty is produced of etched-in touches very apparent 
to a rival, who will put her finger on the exact spot where 
Nature fails and art steps in. 

“She is not in love with him,” thought Mrs. Hoyos, 
as she walked into the house. “I wish she were, for 
there are many men in the world, but only one Basil.” 

And Easter cried in her sleep that night, and woke Jem 
up to tell him she was playing a game that she wanted to 
win, but which she was losing, losing fast. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

“According to your own disposition, you judge of the ways of 
others. “ — Plautus. 

The balconies of Lala Hoyos’ house were not yet 
filled for the season, but their winter trimmings made 
them cosy for all that, and a healthy clean smell of 
spring flowers (something like a mignonette bed in Sep- 
tember) met you on the threshold highly suggestive of 
Arcadian tastes, and an impeccable moral atmosphere. 

No one ever saw a blatant butler in Lala’s house, the 
servants were suave, courtly even, in their manners, like 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


149 


those royal carriages that are just like those of anybody 
else, save for the quiet perfection of the men’s plain black 
liveries, and fresh gloves, and unobtrusive good breeding. 

Most of us do before night what we have sworn nothing 
on earth shall induce us to do when we get up in the 
morning, which was the reason, I suppose, that Easter 
found herself in Lala Hoyos’ drawing-room, with the 
faithful Jem in attendance, when she had passionately 
averred wild horses should not draw her over that 
threshold, only it was so much less trouble to call, pray- 
ing that Mrs. Hoyos might be out, than go on refusing 
her assiduous attentions ! 

Black polished floors, tiger-skins whose cat-like heads 
of colossal proportions tripped up the unwary, a. great 
deal of old green and yellow marquetrie furniture, with 
rich hangings of cunningly blended colours to match, 
palms in huge cloisonne jars that reached like trees to the 
ceiling, a lot of screens, and china that lent itself to the 
colour scheme of the whole, with everywhere flowers, and 
great store of green leaves to back them, and glimpses 
through an archway of another room almost filled by a 
broad barbaric couch covered with tiger-skins and piled 
with silken cushions of green and yellow, such was Lala 
Hoyos’ drawing-room, and Easter felt that a liberal edu- 
cation must have gone to create these harmonies, then 
thought disparagingly of the rich tones and glorious 
window-scapes of the Hangingshaw. 

Such books as lay about showed that Mrs. Hoyos was 
entirely free of the vice of promiscuous reading, for what- 
ever you found in her house was worth looking at twice. 
She made it a rule never to read anything that was not 
signally stamped with the cachet of success, and had been 
heard to say that when a book has been out a fortnight, 
and no woman seems to know anything about it, you may 
be quite sure that book ought never to have been written. 
It does not depend at all on the critics, the public is its 
own taster now, and the success of a book is made by 
what women say about it at dinner tables, or in their 
dressing-rooms, in the letters they write to their friends in 
the country — in every place, in short, where women con- 
gregate, and exchange ideas. 

“ Awfully dodgy arrangement,” said Jem, sinking into 
13* 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


150 

a big chair with deep pockets of brocade on either side 
of it, and in which he looked exactly like a donkey be- 
tween panniers, as Easter promptly informed him. ‘ ‘ Cap- 
ital thing this, for holding one’s brandy and soda. I wish 
you’d get one like it for the Shaw.” 

Easter went over to the bow window and looked out. 

“How I wish,” she said, “that the Hangingshaw 
looked on the Park !” 

“I’m jolly glad it doesn’t,” said Jem, who did not 
change his likings and moods as a woman does, twenty 
times a day. “Town’s a hole — and I’d hoped, dear, 
you’d be nearly sick of it by now.” 

He tried to look miserable, but could not, for wherever 
Easter was, was Heaven. 

“ Why, I do believe,” said Easter, stooping to look at 
a photograph on a table near, ‘ ‘ I hadn’ t the least idea’ ’ 
— her voice sank to a whisper — “that she had got any 
children ’ ’ 

But indeed she had. Lala’ s babies, judiciously sprinkled 
over fifteen years of matrimony, and carefully kept in 
evidence, had been extremely useful, and enabled her to 
keep up appearances, and do just as she pleased, all 
along the line. 

She came in just then with a small toddler holding to 
her skirts, and Easter, looking at the mother through the 
child, felt herself blush at past thoughts of her as they 
touched hands. 

Air, harmony, space, sweetness — and Lala pouring out 
tea, a cherub’s hand twisted in a fold of her skirt . . . 
such was the outward rendering of the town-lady who in 
the meadow at Penroses had been succinctly summed up 
by Daddy as “ the Devil and all his Works.” 

Jem with each gulp of tea drowned a prejudice against 
Mrs. Hoyos. She was a fashionable woman, no doubt, 
and perhaps too little given to avoiding the appearance 
of evil — especially when she had as fine a contempt for 
her company as she had displayed at Fitzwalters, but her 
position was unassailable, and she could do Easter no harm. 

When Lala chose to be charming, and she was a past 
mistress in manner, no man or woman either could resist 
her, and as she always discovered the subject nearest one’s 
heart, she had soon plunged with Easter into the all-en- 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


15 ^ 

grossing subject of clothes, which Jem bore for awhile, 
then began to fidget, and it was Mrs. Hoyos who sug- 
gested that he should go and pick up the latest scandal at 
his club — leaving Easter to drive with her, while Easter, to 
her own astonishment, consented. 

He went lingeringly, and as if he never expected to see 
his wife again, and Lala laughed, though with something 
suspiciously like a tear in her cold eyes. In some odd 
way this little drama, in which she knew she would come 
out victorious, touched her, and the person she felt only 
sorry for was — Jem. 

She went away presently to dress, and, left alone, Easter 
walked over to a picture painted in oils of Basil Strokoff 
that, set on an easel, dominated all one end of the room, 
and in which, for once, he had turned his real face to the 
artist — not that which he kept for the world. This one 
was as full of certainties as the faces of some are of 
possibilities — and failures, and the strength of his charac- 
ter was here really put out, though it would be hard to 
say in which direction he meant to use it. Easter was 
still looking at him, her little teeth set hard, when a softly 
opening door blew a whiff of clean primula scent towards 
her, and the polished floor echoed to a step that she knew. 
Had she moved away in time ? She was looking down 
at Lala’s now closed marquetrie bureau, when Basil came 
over, and stood beside her. They had met several times 
lately, but this was the first occasion that they had been 
alone. 

‘ ‘ Prince Strokoff, ’ ’ she said, looking up at him gravely, 
when they had touched hands, “do you think Mrs. 
Hoyos would mind if I got one like this, for the Hanging- 
shaw ?’ ’ 

“ I really think you might venture.” 

She was examining something else now. He could 
only see the back of her head, the gracious lines of a tall 
young shape in a velvet coat edged with sable, and what 
looked like a twist of sable on her head kept in place by a 
bunch of Neapolitan violets very like the sweeter cluster 
at her throat. 

“I wish you would give me some tea,” he said, his 
hands in his pockets so that the frock coat which becomes 
so few men, but so eminently did him, was pushed back 


152 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


out of sight, and for a moment he looked the homelier 
Basil she had known at Penroses. 

Easter poured it out standing, and praying for Lala to 
come down, though that lady, being informed of Basil’s 
arrival, had not the faintest idea of hurrying herself— quite 
the reverse indeed, which was precisely Lala’ s way. She 
broke the back of everj^ man’s desire, by giving him an 
absolutely free hand in indulging it, and if Basil did not 
grow sick of Easter’s company by having plenty of it, 
then it should not be her fault and she knew very little of 
that gentleman indeed. 

“It’s quite cold,” said Easter, in a housewifely tone, 
putting both her hands round the cup. 

“And we don’t get such cream in town as at Pen- 
roses,” he said, helping himself to sugar, which she had 
forgotten. 

‘ ‘ Do you remember it ?’ ’ said Easter, doubtingly. 

“ Yes ; and how you asked me if I liked my cake with 
soda or ” 

“ O !” cried Easter, putting both hands to her little 
ears, ‘ ‘ what savages you must have thought us ! It is 
only when I see you here, that I realise how utterly out 
of place you were at Penroses !” 

He sat down on a low chair near her, and thoughtfully 
stirred his tea. 

“ Have you ever heard,” he said, “ of the Spadae who 
lived to invent new pleasures? Well, I was one of those 
fellows, and invented an entirely new one for myself, when 
I went to Penroses.” 

“ Father liked you,” said Easter, looking away, “ and 
Nan — Nan never ceases to talk about you. We hope 
father will let her come up. I think she will go mad 
with joy when she sees you again.” 

“ Dear Nan,” he said, heartily. “And you,” headded, 
quietly, “you were not glad to see me at all.” 

She made no reply, and he was keen to observe that 
her cheek remained cool. No, she was not — clearly she 
was not in the very least, afraid of him now. 

He, too, was silent for a time, though he longed to ask 
her why she had married Burghersh. I think the men 
who most interest women are always those who keep 
something in reserve, even from themselves. A woman 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


153 


knows the strength is there, and trembles — this man con- 
trols himself, and can control her. Only if she, too, have 
learned the lesson, she is more than his match, as in any 
question of moral pluck, a woman’s is always greater 
than that of a man. 

“And Dinkie,” she said, calmly (and it suddenly 
crossed her mind how this was the first time she had 
conversed vfith. Basil in her life), “ has gone into the 
business, and he does not like it at all.” 

“And has Bunkulorum given up snails ?” said Basil; 
‘ ‘ but you have given me no news about my old friend, 
the Chief.” 

Easter’s face fell. 

“Father has been losing a lot of money,” she said, 
“and mother says he is not at all well. We are hoping 
he will forgive us, when we go back to the Shaw. ’ ’ 

“And did you run away?” said Basil, who, being 
abroad, had missed the brief account of Easter’s mar- 
riage in the papers. 

“Yes.” 

“You must have been in a great hurry.” 

“ We — we were.” 

“ And you did not appear to be when I saw you last.” 

He had brought the blood into her face now with a 
vengeance, and at that moment Lala entered, buttoning 
her su^de gloves as she came. 

‘ ‘ So sorry, ’ ’ she said, nodding to Basil, ‘ ‘ but every- 
thing went wrong to-day. I’m sure clothes get fits of 
temper, just like people sometimes. Coming with us, 
Basil?” she added, carelessly, as she led the way down- 
stairs. 

“If I may. Has Burghersh any horses in Town?” he 
enquired presently, when with astonishing quickness, con- 
sidering Lala’s blacks played cup and ball all the way, 
they turned in at the Park. 

‘ ‘ No. But if we come up for the season” — she paused, 
and looked away at the just greening over tree- tops, at 
the people who walked beneath them, feeling all the ex- 
hilaration in the air that is surely at its keenest in early 
spring, and that makes us passionately desire to enjoy 
our gift of life to the uttermost. 

“And why don’t you?” said Lala, who was above 


154 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


jealousy, and honestly respected a woman who could 
beat her on her own ground, for all her real friends were 
pretty, if not lovely ; “it made them so much better- 
tempered,” she said, “and so much more moral. It is 
only your ugly people who cannot resist temptation. 
The woman who has been saying ‘ No’ all her life has 
forgotten how to say ‘Yes,’ while the woman who has 
never been even asked to say ‘No’ is so astonished she 
answers in the affirmative from mere habit.” 

“And if you wait for anything you want till you can 
afford to have it,” said Lala, airily, “make up your 
mind that you’ll never get it at all. If you possess a 
good gown, wear it, if you’ve got a smart thing to say, 
say it, or perhaps somebody else will wear your gown 
and say your good thing for you, and when you get a 
chance of enjoying anything, enjoy it. Use up every 
odd and end you’ve got ; don’t leave it for somebody 
else to have a high old time with — I’ve always respected 
misers, they’re so unselfish. So let me look out a house 
to suit you, Mrs. Burghersh, go home for Easter, and 
make sure of enjoying at least one season while you are 
young — and so young,” she added, with a touch of envy 
in her voice. 

But Easter, for all the swift movement, the gay sur- 
roundings, and intoxicating air, was wretched, for she 
had a feeling that the carriage was too small to hold her- 
self and Basil. When they had passed a great many 
people who all seemed to know Mrs. Hoyos and Prince 
Strokoff very well, it was with a sense of positive joy 
that she recognised, at no great distance, Jem’s discon- 
solate back, and with great eagerness said she would get 
out, and join him. 

“I — I’m wretched without my husband!” she said, 
and Lala smiled, and prodded her footman in the back 
with her parasol. He was used to this form of command, 
and the carriage drew up at the rails, while Jem, hearing 
himself called, looked round, and Lala, catching expres- 
sion at sight of Easter, asked herself if, after all, it might 
not be better to be the sun of one man’s sky than one of 
many stars in another one’s firmament? 

“Good-bye, don’t forget you dine with us Friday,” 
she said, airily, as husband and wife went off together, 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


155 


and looking at Basil, who had also descended, and was 
leaning his arms on the carriage, the pair exchanged 
smiles. 

“ She is — wretched without him,” he said. 

“ It grew fatiguing,” she replied, making a little face. 
“ Is she always so difficult? Yet the other day she was 
charming, and with such delightful simplicity of manner. 
Heavens ! they have actually disappeared arm-in-arm ! 
She’ll never be fit for any decent society in this world.” 

“And meanwhile she’ll be uncommon,” said Basil. 

‘ ‘ Stick to her husband, you know, and that sort of 
thing, and you other women will peck her to death 
between you.” 

Lala sighed. 

“ It is the only way to be uncommon,” she said, “ but 
who is prepared to pay such a long price for fame ?’ ’ 

“Who, indeed?” he said, as he laughed and went 
away. 

Her spirits rose. Things were ranging themselves, 
and Easter was playing lavishly into her hands. ‘ ‘ Never 
let yourself go,” she had once said to a friend, who had 
put too much heart into a love affair, with the worst pos- 
sible results ; ‘ ‘ the moment you become a dead weight, 
leaning on a man’s caprice, you become a nuisance, and 
are simply a woman who weighs as many stone as any 
other woman — rather more perhaps, and no angel at all.” 

Yet she had gone perilously near to falling into the 
same blunder herself, and it had taken time to remove 
the disagreeable impression she had made on Basil by 
bowling him out last autumn, but now in that pleasantest 
foretaste of the season that comes before the Passover, 
they had drifted into their old intimacy, and were as con- 
stantly together as before — indeed, their world would 
have been shocked had it been otherwise and remon- 
strated loudly, for Mrs. Grundy is never very angry about 
things that she knows, and is used to ; it is for the un- 
known — what she can neither see, nor hear, nor sit in 
judgment upon — that she entertains a profound aversion 
and contempt. And the woman who is ‘ ‘ born’ ’ may do 
anything. 

Among the personages who came up to pay their re- 
spects to Mrs. Hoyos while her carriage remained by the 


A MAN OF TODAY, 


156 

rails, was a graceful, slight man of fifty, whom she wel- 
comed delightfully, conversed with on current topics, 
reminded that they dined out together that night, and 
who presently raised his hat, and passed on with the rest. ^ 
He was her husband. 

That amiable youth. Lord Hawkhurst, presently came 
by, and glad of something by which to support himself, 
propped himself up against the carriage door for conver- 
sation. 

“ Beastly wind, ain’t it?” he said, in exhausted tones. 
“Seen Burghersh and his wife? Everybody wants to 
know who she is — the few people who are here, you 
know. ’ Pon my soul, now — do you think it can be read ?’ ’ 

“Her complexion ? Quite. So is her stupidity.” 

“Now, Lala,” said the young man, with languid 
severity, “it isn’t like you to be spiteful. That’s your 
charm — though you cut ’em all out, you don’t usually 
mangle ’em !” 

“Ah, Bill,” she said, a little sadly, “when we women 
are young, the men charm us ; when we are old, we charm 
the men. As a proof that men sometimes find me charm- 
ing — I am old. Is not that Golightly? I thought he 
was ruined.” 

“ So he was,” said Billy, looking over his shoulder by 
dint of great exertion. In his public exam, he said the 
causes were slow horses and fast women. Perhaps he’s 
reversed the process now, and got on his legs again. 

Aren’t you going to bow to poor lady B ?” he added, 

a little colour coming into his bored face as a perfectly- 
appointed barouche, drawn by iron greys, came slowly 
past, with a lovely, sad-faced woman inside it. 

“She is a fool,” said Lala, curtly, pausing to administer 
the cut direct, ‘ * and I took such pains with her too ! 
But she never had the courage of her opinions. You 
must tweak Mrs. Grundy’s nose hard, before she’ll let 
you lead her by it. ’ ’ 

“ But this is only a one-man affair,” said Billy, in ag- 
grieved tones, ‘ ‘ and she ran so straight up to then ’ ’ 

“ Too straight,” said Lala, drily. “You should never 
resist anything too long ; it makes you so obstinate. 
And to ruin herself over such a mere trifle — a bagatelle 
like that ! Oh,” she added, laughing at a sudden thought. 


A MAN OF TODAY, 


157 


“ I must tell you something quite lovely. Phaedra said 
to me last night ” 

‘ * Which ?’ ’ said Billy, plaintively. ‘ ‘ There are no 
Penelopes, they are all Phaedras nowadays. Some old 
buffer said that — /didn’t make it up, mind.” 

” I mean the one who takes first honours, stupid,” said, 
Lala. “ Well, I was in her box at the theatre last night, 
and she said to me very earnestly, ‘ You can’t think how 
fond I am of him — you have no idea what a good fellow 
he is !’ I asked her which. ‘Why, my husband,’ she 
said, to my utter consternation. ‘ He behaved so beauti- 
fully to me about that affair w'ith Jean — ^when Jean treated 
me so badly, you know ; he sympathised with me so thor- 
oughly, and was such a comfort to me, I have almost 
loved him ever since !’ ” 

Billy laughed, but he was thinking how hard it was that 
the woman wrapped at birth in a purple garment may do 
anything she likes — her worst escapades are winked at, 
and promptly hushed up, or ignored, even the immacu- 
late ones combining to hedge her round, while the poor 
outsider who sins ever so little, finds her iniquities 
shrieked to the four winds of heaven. 

“What luck these daughters of notorious women 
have,” said Lala, languidly. ‘‘They carry off all the 
big matches ! You see the mothers can give them such 
introductions.” She turned to bestow her sweetest smile 
on a painted old wretch, whose iniquities had, from mere 
force of time and habit, become an institution, and there- 
fore most highly respected. 

Billy went on his way with some of the curl taken out 
of his moustache, and an air of dejection about his usually 
pert and lively eye-glass. He was sorry for the poor 
woman w'ho had just been cut, as men always are sorry 
for the Magdalenes of the world (being indeed respon- 
sible for their own work) — but Lala’s laws were as those 
of the Medes and Persians, and altered not. And if the 
world loves a whipping-boy, it also hates the neighbour 
who parades in public those secret sins that both have in 
common, and it abhors giving a ‘‘ name” to what every- 
body knows, and everybody chooses to ignore, till it is 
brutally forced upon them. 

In his divagations he knocked up against Basil, and 
14 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


158 

promptly hooked on to him, but Basil, resenting this un- 
even distribution of weight, deposited his incubus in one 
chair and himself in another, whence they watched the 
sparse stream of people trickling to and fro. 

“There she is !“ Bill presently exclaimed, and hopped 
up with amazing alacrity. 

“How are you, Hawkhurst?” said Jem, glad to meet 
a neighbour, but with a disgusted feeling that men sprang 
up in battalions when Easter was anywhere around, 
though he could walk the whole length of the Park with- 
out ever being accosted, when he appeared alone. 

When an introduction had been effected, Basil, who al- 
ways made his inclinations give way to his manners (ex- 
cept perhaps when he was in the country), joined the 
group. His dark face was austere in the cold sunshine, 
but now that she was released from the prison she had 
just now shared with him, Easter’s heart leaped for joy 
as he looked at her. 

‘ ‘ Are you still — wretched f ’ he said, under cover of 
Bill’s conversation with Jem. 

Their eyes met. Unappeasable, unappeased, some- 
thing looked out of his, and her colour faded. 

“Mrs. Burghersh,’’ cut in Bill’s voice, “I want you 
both to dine with me at the Amphitryon to-night, and do 
a play after. Strokoff, will you come too ?’ ’ 

“We have an engagement for to-night,” she said; 
whereupon Jem squeezed her arm so joyfully that every- 
body thought she was telling a lie — though in point of 
fact she was not, being pledged to some of Jem’s people, 
who were of the dullest, as the greatest, of the earth. 

“Jem,” said Easter, when they got back to Long’s 
and she had mounted a chair to put both hands on her 
husband’s shoulders and look into his eyes, “don’t you 
think that Town, with its Savoy, and Amphitryon, and 
Berkeley, its Park, and Sandown, and Tattersall’s, its 
Bond Street, and Opera, is just a circus ring where you 
are bound to pass and repass the same people a hundred 
times a day, to show off your paces, however much you 
may wish to avoid them ?’ ’ 

Jem looked earnestly at his wife, as he squeezed her 
face up together, so as to kiss as much as possible of it at 
once. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


159 


I loathe it all,” he said. “ Let’s go home, Easter,” 
he added, as her face sank out of sight on his shoulder. 

‘‘Yes, that would be best, to run far away out of the 
reach of temptation, and stop there for ever and ever,” 
she said to herself, and then she thought of Nan, who 
was coming up immediately — unwillingly yielded by Mr. 
Denison, to whom much humble pie had lately been 
eaten by the Burghershes. ‘‘We can’t put off Nan,” 
she said, jumping down as her maid knocked -at the door, 
and reminded her it was time to dress for dinner. 

Jem’s face fell. 

‘‘She wouldn’t mind,” he said. 

But already Easter’s mood had changed. She remem- 
bered Lala’s advice — and Town was for a day, and the 
Hangingshaw for all time— and the frock she was just 
going to put on, delicious. 

‘‘Jem,” she said, ‘‘to-morrow you shall go and see 
Hugon — it will be a pious deed, and make you feel 
better.” 

‘‘And afterwards, if you don’t mind,” said Jem, with 
vigor, “I’ll kick some of your admirers to please 
myself. ’ ’ 

“ Do,” said Easter, as she vanished. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

** Those who have lamps will pass them to others.” — P lato. 

The acquaintance with Lala Hoyos grew apace, since, 
as Basil was quite determined to see Easter in one place, 
if he could not in another, it became Lala’s chief busi- 
ness to bring them together, whereupon all her friends 
said, “ How clever !” and so effectually did she preach 
the gospel of to-day, which is, that you should never 
take your husband about with you, but always some 
other woman’s property, if you want to enjoy yourself, 
that Jem found himself constantly gravitating to Fair- 
mile, where he could talk of Easter to his heart’s con- 


i6o 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


tent — which was the next best thing to absorbing her 
company. 

“ They seem to be always talking clothes,” he said, 
ruefully, one day to Hugon, scarcely realising how such 
merchandise has hustled many a man out of a woman’s 
heart — possibly because they take so much more room 
than he does. On the other hand, many a man loves a 
woman as interpreted by her clothes solely — it is only 
your savage lover who pierces through an habiliment of 
dishclouts to the indestructible She, and finds her beau- 
tiful. 

Jem was emphatically out of it, and he was not sorry. 
An artificial life for him had no joys, and many a man 
does not know how nature, all unconsciously, has filled 
his heart, till he finds himself in a great city, and the 
clocks do not tell him the hours, or the almanac the days, 
so well as from sheer habit will occur the thought, ‘ ‘ The 
white violets will be out on the west bank, with the 
hedge behind it,” or “The cuckoo will be calling from 
heaven to her namesake in the marshy meadow below,” 
and even a whiff from a florist’s will bring up before him 
his favourites of the copse and hedgerow, so that waking 
in the muffled dawn of a great city, he will see it glorious 
on his own country side, or when rain has fallen, in 
fancy wander in his own garden and smell earth and leaf 
sweeter than any costliest town exotic. 

Thus Jem found pleasure in Fairmile, which was still 
rural, though less than a dozen miles out of town, and as 
he talked of Easter, evidently thought that the almond- 
trees were blossoming at the mere recollection of her. 

It happened on one of these half-holiday excursions in 
the neighbourhood, that they passed a gate which gave 
a brief glimpse of a big white house, one side of which 
seemed to consist entirely of a glass winter-garden, and 
with sudden interest, Jem asked whose it was. 

“ It belongs to old Prince Strokoff, Basil’s father.” 

Jem had not known till now that Basil’s people lived at 
Fairmile, and it set him thinking, and he did not like 
his thoughts. Yet after a moment’s pause he spoke of 
something else, and did not when he went home, or at 
any other time, reproach Easter with having preserved a 
silence towards him that amounted surely to deceit. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


i6i 


A woman, metaphorically speaking, keeps a hand- 
glass beside her, into which, when she has done some- 
thing noble, she looks for applause, and finds it. Man 
has no such glass handy, and when he does a magnani- 
mous thing, not only never dreams of self-congratulation, 
but absolutely does not realise that he has done anything 
out of the common way ; probably thinks he has rather 
made a fool of himself than otherwise. The woman has 
reaped her reward, for if nobody else knows, she knows, 
and has richly enjoyed patting herself on the back, while 
the man blunders on, cheerless, uncomforted, with no out- 
ward or inward sign of victory. 

Some time afterwards, when they had turned home- 
wards, Jem said, as if they were continuing a conversa- 
tion, “ You see, Hugon, she liked me best.” 

“Of course,” said Hugon, thinking of how most of 
us at least once in our lives say “ No,” in our pride, to 
what we most passionately desire. 

She pushed her shabby hat back from her brow. 

“Jem,” she said, “have you ever felt when you have 
gone out angry, and a gentle west wind has caressed 
your face, that your face was not good enough for it ? 
That’s what I feel when I come out here, and talk 
to you.” 

“ Dear little woman,” said Jem, “ how I wish we could 
make things better for you in every way.” 

“You’ve no need to wish that,” she said. “You’ve 
always done it. And to make a bright spot in anyone’s 
life — ^to add a little to the heap of happiness, not the 
misery, in this world, is a great thing. If it be only to 
show a kind face — to say a gentle word, so that loving- 
thoughts and looks may follow you — though you be none 
the wiser. But they never mingle, Jem,” she added, a 
little wildly, ‘ ‘ the happy and the unhappy lives ! They 
are like the poplar-trees at Penroses, which, however 
blown about, make room for each other, and in wildest 
storm never touch.” 

“Poor soul,” said Jem, gently, and was it not the 
feminine touch in his character that made his charm to 
her? For a man must have a touch of weakness in him 
to be really manly, and prevent his strength from over- 
riding and crushing a woman’s tender heart. 

I 14* 


i 62 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


“ Every hour is lost that is not spent in love,” said 
Vanini, and he spoke wisely, knowing so well that both 
the love and the hour are short And now Hugon began 
to talk about Easter, that Jem might tarry a little longer 
beside her. 

“We’ve got to dance at a ball to-night,” responded 
Jem, “at least has. I stand behind a door, and hold 
her bouquet — one of those beastly shower things that 
make you look a fool — but she does enjoy it so, dear 
little woman !’ ’ he added, heartily. 

‘ ‘ And does Basil Strokoff— dance !’ ’ 

“ I don’t know what he doesn’t do. Easter and Mrs. 
Hoyos are on his coach to-day somewhere ; I suppose I’m 
a fool to let her go, but it’s her first fling in town, and I 
haven’t the heart to dock her pleasures, and that’s a fact. 
There’ll be trouble enough when we get home, for I 
hear Denison has been losing heavily — with both hands 
— and he won’t pull up, or face things, or do anything. 
Easter only knows a very little, and I hope Nan won’t 
tell her.” 

“ When is Nan coming ?” 

“To-morrow. We have been waiting for her. She 
seems to be Denison’s favourite child now.” 

They had arrived at the school gates, and behind the 
wire blind a lot of girls’ heads were bobbing, and an 
india-rubber figure was made to execute a low bow, as if 
in derision of the handsome young married man, and the 
faded governess, who so regularly walked out together. 

Only, when Jem had said good-bye, her face haunted 
him by its likeness to some one he had seen before — the 
resemblance had worried him when she stood under the 
pink almond blossom — looking up at it with tired blue 
eyes — but now he was able to place her. She was like 
one of Burne Jones’s women, and he had always felt so 
sorry for those women ; they seemed to have planned 
their lives so extremely ill, and they always looked so 
hungry, and so awkward to make love to ; then, after the 
fashion of selfish male nature, he thought of Easter. A 
man seldom remembers anything he does not want — and 
he always wanted Easter. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


163 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

“ Princes are never without flatterers to seduce them, ambition to 
deprave them, and desires to corrupt them.” — Plato. 


Nan sat bolt upright on the extreme edge of one of 
Lala’s green and yellow chairs, feeling acutely wretched, 
when up to a few moments ago she had been utterly and 
intensely happy, for she had been almost overpowered 
by the variety of delightful emotions through which she 
had passed during the brief hours since her arrival in 
town. Everything, even the hammering of the great 
pulse of life that throbbed through Bond Street, the 
enthralling interest of the first play (a full-blooded melo- 
drama) that she had ever beheld, those wonderful shops 
out of which that morning she had issued, a new and 
gorgeous Nan, and, most delightful of all, the meeting 
with Basil had so enchanted her, that when subsequently 
brought by Easter to tea with Lala Hoyos, she had just 
drawn a deep breath of satisfaction at her exquisite sur- 
roundings, then sat down with folded hands to be quiet, 
and enjoy everything, and now — what was it ? A false 
note had been struck — in every nerve of her sensitive 
body she felt it, and was jarred all over and made mis- 
erable. Was it possible that through all the outward 
purity, Lala’s inner life revealed itself to senses almost as 
acute and delicate as those of some fleet-footed forest 
thing, who is aware of the snarer’s approach long before 
it is possible to distinguish his lightest tread ? 

One of the cherubs was present, and Nan observed in- 
cidentally that it got no kisses, if plenty of cake, and this, 
though Penroses suffered from an overplus of cherubs 
(mostly naughty), disquieted the girl, though it certainly 
had not the effect of making her heart sink in the plum- 
met-like way it was now doing. 

She had been so overjoyed to see Basil again, so en- 
raptured to behold Easter in all her richly-set loveliness, 
and now that she saw the two talking together like inti- 
mate friends in the window embrasure yonder, why was 


164 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


she not glad, instead of being seized with the conviction 
that everything had become hopelessly wrongs and that 
it could never come right again any more ? 

Lala came over to the little figure that looked forlorn 
in spite of all its bravery, being attracted as others were 
by the little ugly face whose freckles showed so plainly 
through the pale skin, yet was all illumined with some- 
thing that made even beauty seem commonplace beside 
it. But as usual. Nan had kicked over the traces, and 
spoiled all Easter’s care by tying up her glorious masses 
of hair with a scarlet ribbon that she was never allowed 
to wear at home, nor would be wearing now, if Dinkie, 
that stern censor of her clothes and manners, happened 
to be anywhere around. 

Nan looked up earnestly at Easter’s new friend, and in 
a way that made Lala uncomfortable. 

She had an odd sense of being stripped of her outward 
presentment, and her inner self suddenly laid bare to 
this child to whom had not yet come the extinction of 
that “single eye which makes the whole body full of 
light,’’ and that, call it interpenetration, comprehension, 
simplicity, what you will, had in Nan so strangely sur- 
vived childhood, and like a search light roved hither and 
thither over the hearts and minds brought in contact 
with her own, often to their great confusion, and her own 
keen disappointment and sorrow. 

“Where’s Jem?’’ said Nan, gravely, looking across 
anxiously at Basil and Easter; “doesn’t he bring Easter 
out to tea ?’ ’ 

“ Sometimes.” 

“ Then he ought to always,” said Nan, intrepidly. “ I 
think it’s about time we went home,” she added, and got 
up, and approached the pair in the window, who started 
guiltily apart as she drew near. 

“What are you two talking about?” said Nan, look- 
ing from one to the other, steadily. 

“Oh, nothing,” said Easter, greatly taken aback, and 
catching at her breath in a hurry, but Basil’s face dark- 
ened. Nan was his better angel who had been welcome 
to him at Penroses, but he did not want her now, and 
with all his heart he wished her at that moment back in 
her dusty old cellar taking counsel with her own soul. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


i6S 

It is impossible to overestimate the danger when two 
persons of opposite sexes, hitherto irreconcilable, begin 
to soften to each other, to find excuses for one another, 
to discover virtues that no one else ever discovered, and 
in a word to become friends. The surrender is all the 
more entire in proportion to the fierceness of their former 
alienation, and they behold each other, not as they really 
are, but arrayed in all the spendthrift generosity of their 
thoughts. 

“ I think you are very unkind tome. Nan,” said Basil, 
not without effort. There was a little flush on his dark 
face, a dangerous, reckless look in his eyes, not so quickly 
got rid of as had been the signs on Easter’s. 

Nan looked at him eagerly, lovingly — as so many 
women and children did at Basil, then she shook her 
head. Those clear eyes, those unworn instincts of hers, 
never played her false, and she knew now why everything 
had all at once become so “ wrong” to her, and fright- 
ened her. 

‘‘You were good at Penroses, Basil, but somehow I 
don’t know how it is, you’re not half so good now, though 
you are such a swell, and look so grand,” she said, sadly. 

‘‘Your hat is all on one side, child,” said Easter, 
crossly, ‘ ‘ and you have spoiled yourself with that hideous 
red ribbon. You must have tied it on when my back 
was turned,” which was the fact. 

Nan’s eternal vanity stirred. She consulted a Venetian 
mirror near, and put her hat on straight, but she did not 
take off the ribbon. Then she looked at Easter’s white 
cloth gown edged with beaver and bonnet to match, and 
sighed — happy for a moment in the joy that her sister’s 
beauty gave her, but the shadow came back immediately, 
and she pulled at Easter’s hand to draw her away. 

“ Let’s go home,” she said, ‘‘ to Jem.” 

Easter pushed the child’s hand away, and turned to the 
window, feeling herself plucked suddenly out of that sweet 
intoxication in which she had lately been plunged, that 
delicious draught of a country-bred girl’s first season, to 
which she brings everything brisk and fresh, even to the 
young blood with which to enjoy it — ay, and a heart as 
young as her years. 

All this, and more, had been Easter’s; and now Nan 


i66 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


was doing her best to spoil it all . . . she looked back 
into the room just as Basil, who had turned abruptly 
away, was moving with Lala towards the inner room, and 
something familiar as from long practice in the way the 
pair moved together, so completely in accordance, so 
exquisitely matched, struck disagreeably on Easter, pre- 
occupied as she was ... a film seemed to clear from her 
eyes, and she saw — what was it that she saw ? — that had 
oppressed Nan from the first ? 

It was significant of the drowsy moral atmosphere in 
which she had been dwelling, that Easter had not lately 
speculated on what were the terms existing between Lala 
Hoyos and Prince Strokofi*. He was constantly in Park 
Lane, to be sure, but Mr. Hoyos, who often appeared at 
his own dinner table, and was even occasionally to be met 
on his own stairs, appeared on the best of terms with 
Basil, and the servants and children treated him as one 
of the family. 

“ I had no idea Prince Strokoff was such a personage,” 
she had said one day to Lala, trying to adjust her ideas of 
Basil here, and Basil at Penroses, and Lala had looked 
straight at Easter with those grey-green eyes of hers, and 
replied, — 

‘ ‘ He is one of the very best men in Town, or you 
would not see him in my house.” 

But then so many other “ best” men came here too, 
and why ? Lala’s corrupt influence that consisted mainly 
in relaxing the moral fibre of her friends without their 
becoming aware of it, suddenly revealed itself as some- 
thing horrible, unclean, to Easter ... it was as though 
she saw with Nan’s eyes, Nan’s eyes that had frightened 
Basil away, silencing his tongue, and sending him to Lala. 

He and she were probably sitting at that moment on 
the tiger-covered estrade, that Easter had always instinc- 
tively avoided ; they had sat there long before he had ever 
seen herself, they would be there side by side long after 
she, a mere episode, had gone back to the obscurity 
whence she had temporarily emerged, they were old 
sweethearts, old pals, while she . . . Easter snatched 
Nan’s thin arm and hurried her across the room, down 
the stairs, past the men-servants in the hall, and out of 
the door, never stopping till they had passed through a 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 167 

little grille into the Park, where she paused panting, to 
find herself face to face with — Jem. 

‘ ‘ How on earth do you come here f ^ cried Easter, 
catching her breath unevenly. 

“Well,” said Jem, looking rather shamefaced, 
“wherever you are. I’m never far ofi— and you’re nearly 
always with Mrs. Hoyos at this time — you might want me 
for something or other, you know, and I like to see you 
drive past, and everybody admiring you,” he added, 
squeezing her arm with his usual indecent regard for 
public opinion. “ I say to myself, ‘That’s my Missus,’ 
and I long to tell everybody I meet, and feel I shall burst 
if I don’t.” 

“You are a silly old person,” said Easter, still pale and 
disordered, but Nan, once out of Lala Hoyos’ atmosphere, 
and now in the right one, had recovered herself, and with 
hat askew, and one of her stockings worming down, 
walked on air. 

“Jem,” she said, “ you’ve got better flowers here than 
we have in the country, and Dinkie never told me one 
word about them !” 

“O ! this is all very well,” said Jem, disparagingly, “but 
give me the wild flowers. Why, I’ve stood in those 
woods below the Shaw and I’ve seen — yes. I’ve seen the 
hyacinths creep up over the green, bit by bit, till the 
bloom has almost covered my feet, like a little stealing 
wave of the sea, only ever so much sweeter, you know ; 
and they grow of their own accord, and just how they 
please, not like these stiff, stuck-up town sisters of theirs 
that take an army of gardeners to plant and keep up to 
the mark !” 

“Jem,” said Easter, “you may take me home to 
your beloved Shaw to-morrow if you like.” 

Jem looked transported with joy, then glanced down 
at Nan, whose senses were all scattered in enjoyment, 
and shook his head. 

“We can’t spoil the poor little soul’s pleasure like 
that,” he whispered, “we must give her a few days 
longer, and then ” 

“Jem,” said Easter, severely, “ if you persist in making 
love to me out of doors. I’ll get a divorce. People will 
never suspect me of being your wife, or even if I were 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


1 68 

— a man in America was imprisoned the other day for 
kissing his wife in the street ! It was such a strange wish 
on his part, you know, and he was properly punished.” 

“Don’t get into that cynical way of talking, dear,” 
said Jem, in a hurt tone ; “ it may be Mrs. Hoyos’ style, 
but it isn’t yours. You are too young, and it doesn’t 
suit you a bit — here she is.” 

It was indeed Lala who came by just then, dressed in 
Lenten colours of course, sitting upright as a lance, and 
^returning those salutations, nearly all respectful and 
admiring, so frequently made to her, for at the bottom 
of human nature is a very real and enduring love of 
wicked people ; we take a fearful joy as we stand on the 
right side of the hedge — almost within touch of the cul- 
prit, but safe — and some, even the best of us, love to be 
wicked vicariously. So that when we see a brilliant 
sinner committing the sins that we have all the wish, but 
not the courage, to commit for ourselves, and when 
moreover by some marvellous sleight-of-hand trick we 
see that person escaping all the consequences of his or 
her wrongdoing, we applaud and admire the successful 
free lance, and, what is more, Mrs. Grundy thoroughly 
enters into the joke, and applauds her too. 

So that a glance of recognition from Lala’s grey eyes 
was coveted by women as much as men, and having 
reduced the enjoyment of life to a science while she was 
yet young, and knowing that no pleasures or worldly 
consideration went the way of a virtuous woman, she had 
an exceedingly good time of it all round, and would 
never be able in the future to reproach herself— that 
bitterest regret of a bad woman — with having missed a 
single opportunity of doing what seemed most good in 
her own eyes. And, above all things, she keenly enjoyed 
the excitement of successfully balancing herself on the 
social tight-rope ; indeed, without that exercise of skill, 
she could not have really enjoyed herself at all. 

At the present moment, seeing, without seeming to 
see, the husband, the wife, the little sister, standing 
together in one of the side walks, like any happy, honest 
bourgeois family who knew no better in their enjoyments, 
she smiled as she turned her small, soignie head away, 
for things went well. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


169 


And she had done all that Basil could possibly expect 
of her, and if Nan’s eyes had given her a. scare, they had 
scared that drifting idiot, Easter, too, who would pres- 
ently go home to the Hangingshaw, while Basil — Basil 
would remain. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

** Surveying all things with a quiet scorn, 

Tamed himself down to living purposes, 

The occupations and the semblances 
Of ordinary men — and such he seemed.” 

The opera was over, and the /byer was crowded with 
the usual polyglot crowd brought together by music, the 
one thing that annihilates time and space, and sweeps away 
as if they were not, the false conditions of life, influencing 
the young, the good, the bad, the rich, and the poor 
equally, if for the better, or the worse, who shall say ? 

It is something to have one’s soul filled with rapture, 
to lose one’s own personality even, in a heavenly strain ; 
but does it morally sustain us, does it toughen our men- 
tal fibre, strengthen our principles, increase our spiritual- 
ity, or help us to better wage the daily war most of us 
fight between our duty and our inclinations ? 

I trow not. Music is a seduction, a luxury, an en- 
ervation of the senses that sets us dreaming, maybe 
weeping, when we should work, longing where only the 
stern duty of renunciation lies before us, remembering 
when only stern forgetting can save us, and under its in- 
fluence, passionate souls, rendered by it more passionate, 
have been moved to words and actions that they have 
looked back upon afterwards as the irresponsible prompt- 
ings of madness — or the Devil. 

Nan and Easter were together, and Jem had gone to 
look for his umbrella. It was one of those ineffaceable 
signs in him, by which you may know the man who is 
not, nor ever will be, a man of fashion, that wet or fine 
(though in the country he never saw one), in town he 
was never seen without an umbrella. 

15 


H 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


170 

I believe it was forcibly abducted from him at the levte^ 
but it is certain that his habit of taking it to balls and the 
opera was extremely inconvenient, and to-night was the 
cause of Easter missing her turn when their carriage 
came up. 

Perhaps her shouted name advertised her, but a great 
many people turned to look at the lovely young woman 
in her black robe, heavily encrusted about the breast with 
rubies of great size and splendour, and at the little red- 
headed girl with the earnest face who stood beside her ; 
among others was Lala Hoyos, who at once made her 
graceful way to where they stood. 

“ How are you, dear?” she said, easily, and certainly 
Lala’s way of address was charming — the worse a woman 
is, the more impeccable her manners invariably are. She 
was wrapped in a grey poplin cloak that fitted her like a 
sheath, and swathed in cobwebby laces almost to her 
lips, while the tall, slender form, and foot, and hand, all 
went to make up an identity unapproachable in its dis- 
tinction and charm. 

“ I am very well,” said Easter, gravely. 

“I have called to see you,” said Mrs. Hoyos, airily, 

‘ ‘ until I got ashamed of asking if you were in — but of 
course you have been taking your little sister about. 
Don’t you see Prince Strokoff?” 

Easter lifted an Egyptian fan of black feathers to the 
level of her chin as Basil bowed before her. She carried 
herself so royally that she seemed almost as tall as he, 
and their eyes met in a sudden flash, but hers flashed 
first. His gaze swooped down on her mouth which she 
had scorned to hide — clung there — perchance forced those 
rosy curves asunder, for she said, — 

“How well Miss Eames sang to-night! But I like 
Calv6 better.” 

‘‘I thought you had gone home,” he said. “Have 
you given orders at Long’s that you are never once at 
home during the whole twenty-four hours of each day 
and night?” 

“ How can you spare time from your duties ” — Easter 
glanced over her shoulder at Lala Hoyos — “to call on 
me?” 

Basil smiled. She had exposed a nerve, and nerves 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


171 

are healthily alive — especially jealous ones, it is only 
when you cease to have the power of hurting a thing, 
that it has passed out of your province, and your life. 

“You are looking more lovely than ever to-night,” he 
murmured, and indeed, though it is difficult to make a 
sensation in a crowd, the people near steadily encroached 
upon her, and discussed her to her face. 

“We are going away almost immediately,” said 
Easter, with perfect calm. “We are anxious about 
father. ’ ’ 

“ Yes,” said Basil, looking down, and in quite altered 
tones, ‘ ‘ I have heard about it from Hawkhurst — and I 
wish I could do something — you know how I like Mr. 
Denison. If I could be of any service ” 

That was the worst or the best of Basil, that when one 
was most angry with him, out would come some genuine 
trait of goodness, that endeared him to you whether you 
would or no. 

“ Thank you,” she said, gently, unconsciously remind- 
ing him of what a brute he had been to her once, of how 
bitterly he had made her weep . . . and had he not been 
crueller to her since that, for even now was he not the 
hunter, she the prey ? 

His face changed, and a more manly, tender feeling for 
her than he had hitherto known, touched him then. He 
made a sudden resolve that he would not go to Fitzwal- 
ters for the recess. 

“ Doesn’t she look like Benson’s shop window?” said 
Lala’s voice between them, as by a glance she indicated 
a woman in yellow velvet whose ample bust was one vast 
parterre of diamonds, ‘ ‘ and how very little trouble her 
bodices must be to fit — most of her is outside them !” 

Jem appeared at this moment brandishing his rescued 
gamp, and it crossed Easter’s mind vexedly, that she 
could not really be a woman of taste, or she never would 
have married a man who went through life as the Siamese 
twin to an umbrella. 

“ He wanted to put me off with another fellow’s,” said 
Jem, wrathfully, and showing signs in his countenance 
of a recent fray ; “ I’ve a jolly good mind to report him,” 
and full of his grievance, and without seeing Basil, he 
tucked Easter’s hand under his arm, and hurried her away. 


172 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


Jem indeed had almost forgotten that gentleman, not 
having seen him for nearly a week. Easter had not fretted 
after him, or even mentioned him, and a man almost al- 
ways looks at essentials, and eschews problems. I don’t 
know anything that so encourages deceit in women as the 
fact that the average man does not see what is not painted 
in one of the primary colours right under his nose. Man 
is not imaginative — except when he is ill — then he knows 
he is going to die, and usually does — from pure fright. 

So that when Jem had put that lovely young harmony 
in black and rose into the carriage which just now came 
up for the second time, and turning round to look for 
Nan, found her under Basil’s protection, he met the Rus- 
sian cordially enough, and then, the coachman being vo- 
ciferously ordered to move on, pushed Nan in, and 
quickly followed her. But Basil coolly held up his hand, 
then standing bare-headed by the carriage door, said, — 

“You will allow me to call and wish you good-bye to- 
morrow about three ?’ ’ 

Easter’s reply was inaudible, he waited a long moment, 
then gave the signal to move on, and the hollow echo of 
the horses’ feet beneath the archway seemed to strike in 
thunder on her heart. 

And Nan that night sobbed herself to sleep. Basil had 
scarcely spoken to her, scarcely even seen her, though 
she stood beside him, but only Easter, and she had 
watched their faces as they talked together, and they had 
frightened her. 

And Easter also was weeping, while Jem slept — weep- 
ing as a child weeps out of whose hand is snatched the 
cake but half eaten, or one who, hearkening eagerly, is 
left with the tale half told, of which she most passionately 
desires to know the end. 

Basil found other means than tears to distract his 
thoughts. But when in broad daylight he closed his 
eyes, most unaccountably his mind remained in the same 
state as it had been some hours before. He would not 
go to Fitz waiters for the recess. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


173 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

“ Common souls pay with what they do ; nobler souls with that 
which they are.’* 

There had been one touch of peculiarity about Easter 
that might be regarded variously as folly or wisdom by 
different persons, she had absolutely refused to attend 
either of the March drawing-rooms. 

Even the temptation of wearing an exquisite gown, and 
probably being the most beautiful person there, would 
not move her, and though she had every right to go to 
Court, as Jem’s people were among the great ones of the 
earth (though quite obscure, inasmuch as they had always 
behaved themselves), and they thought Easter’s objec- 
tions ridiculous, yet there was a strong touch of original- 
ity in this young woman, who, when other people hooped 
and barrelled themselves, wore stripes. She told Jem 
that when Mrs. Snooks, and Mrs. Push, and Mrs. Doubt- 
ful gave up sticking plumes on their heads, and tails on 
their backs, and asking permission to pay a morning call 
at a place they were never likely to set foot in again, she 
would be delighted to go to Court — and not before. She 
supposed the fun came in when they had their photo- 
graphs taken, and had suburban friends in to bare-oacked 
tea. 

Meanwhile, Jem’s people, who were very good and very 
dull — else Easter had not found the society of Lala so 
entertaining — saw that the right people called on Jem’s 
wife, and that she was invited to those Lenten festivities, 
to which people went mourning in lavender for souls 
that, for the most part, had never existed. 

There is a story told of Byron that, being taxed with 
staring unmercifully at a lady, he was asked if he had 
never seen a beautiful woman before, to which he replied, — 

“ A great many, but never one who wore her hair out- 
side her bonnet instead of inside.” 

Now, Easter did not startle people by any such eccen- 
tricity, but in Town as in the country she dazzled all be- 
15* 


174 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


holders by her delicious coloring, and at first her successes 
had amused her, till latterly these well-groomed men, 
who, looking hard in her eyes for what they did not find, 
walked sharp off in the opposite direction, and ended by 
disgusting and angering her. 

Often, indeed, she felt ashamed of being a woman, and 
almost hated the complexion which gave her the aspect 
of a new edition of an old classic, and nowhere at any 
time met any two men to match Basil and Jem. And 
indeed one could not wish a woman a worse fate than to 
be loved by two such men at one and the same time, for, 
alas ! it might end in her loving both. 

And now Nan had been taken to all the solemn regu- 
lation shows, — the Tower, the Monument (up which she 
had walked two double lest her weight should o’ ertopple 
it), St. Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, Madame Tussaud’s, 
and everything else that can purge a young provincial of 
her ignorance, and show her life. But Nan greatly 
missed Dinkie, the sole arbiter usually of her pleasures 
and sorrows, and often she felt it was too much for one 
inconsiderable person to enjoy by herself, and that Dinkie’ s 
taking half would have doubled her joys. 

Sometimes, when it was not too late for conversation 
after a play, she would unbosom herself of some of that 
perilous stuff which weighed upon her mind, and over- 
flow to Jem and Easter, who had lately reverted to that 
’Arry and ’Arriett style which Lala had for a time so 
effectually knocked on the head. In her code of man- 
ners, to show the smallest affection for a husband was in 
the most execrable taste, while a tendresse, even for a 
favoured lover, should be no more than suspected. 

“What frightens me most,” said Nan, on their last 
night but one in Town, “is how one is nothing — how 
little mark one can make on anything, and how you 
never find it out till you come to a big city, and see all 
the millions of people going to and fro in it ! I’ll never 
get into a rage again, and think it matters, or that Fm 
anything, for every house, every place, every street you 
go into is different, and all the people are different, and 
they are all living their own lives as hard and as well as 
they can, and they don’t know or care anything about 
us, and we don’t care about and nothing matters 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 175 

much to anybody except just his very own self, and to do 
his duty to what’s nearest.” 

Nan paused awhile, and the multitudinous roar of the 
street seemed to echo her words. 

‘‘I’d like to be rich,” she went on, wistfully. “It’s 
the only thing that makes one want money — to help 
people, to take sunshine in, and drive hunger and cold 
out. Only think, to have gold in your pocket, and to 
know that little children were starving, and their mothers’ 
hearts breaking, and not to go and give it to them ! Oh, 
you see it in their faces — not the beggars, but those who 
don’t beg — it’s the silent ones I’m sorry for. Sometimes 
when you let me get out of the carriage in the Park, 
people come and sit down quite near, and they don’t say 
a word, but they have got famine and despair in their 
eyes — and — you know you’re so good to me, Jem, about 
pocket-money, I always give them something, and some- 
times they are too far gone even to say ‘Thank you,’ 
but they shuffle away towards the shops— not to the 
river.” 

‘ ‘ But you only stop their hunger for a little while. 
Nan,” said Easter. ‘‘The trifle you can give them 
cannot last for ever.” 

‘‘But it helps,” urged Nan. ‘‘Perhaps something 
else turns up after that. And if I help them a little, why 
shouldn’t someone else help them more?” 

‘‘Something usually does turnup,” admitted Easter, 
apparently following some train of thought of her own ; 
“life would be unendurable but for details. You rage, 
weep, vow that your life is over, then luncheon or dinner 
time comes, and you abuse the cook roundly if the fish 
is over- or under-done, or you praise the wine, and so 
comes consolation. It’s humiliating that the worst sor- 
row on earth loses half its strength if you can pour into 
the body that holds the suflering soul a pint of strong 
soup or a glass of old wine — but that’s the truth.” 

Nan looked in a puzzled way at Easter, but Jem went 
on puffing at his cigar, for he was getting to understand 
Easter and her moods better than anyone else had ever 
done— understood her to an extent that it might have 
startled her perhaps to know. Have we not all met 
some woman who has for her husband a man dogged, 


176 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


faithful, devoted, ever ready to save her from the conse- 
quences of her own follies, even to forgive and comfort 
her when, perchance, all the world has turned against her? 

And perhaps Jem knew what was in Easter’s thoughts 
during those last few days before leaving town almost as 
well as she knew herself. The feverish unrest, the con- 
stant movement, the utter inability to sit still all pointed 
to a state of mind the reverse of happy, and not without 
some painful searchings of the soul had Jem hit upon the 
real reason, and ignored it. 

Basil had called, and she had been really out. He had 
called again, and she had been in, but excused herself. 
She had left cards on Lala Hoyos, and met that lady 
abroad once or twice, and in the distance — conspicuous 
even among those magnificently-grown men and women 
only to be seen in Bond Street during the season — she 
had caught sight of Basil, but managed to avoid him. 

And meanwhile her temper suffered ; so did Jem. 

“Nan, child,” she said, impatiently, “be off to bed. 
You and Jem are going to see Hugon to-morrow, and 
we go home next day.” 

Nan looked wistfully at Easter out of her fleece of red 
hair. 

“ I haven’t vexed you, Essie, have I ?” she said, hum- 
bly. 

“No, no, child;” but a queer expression crossed 
Easter’s face. Who but Nan had come between that 
friendship which had held such perilous excitement and 
charm for her, and which she now so passionately and 
achingly missed ? 

“ God bless you, Easter !” said the child, as she went 
away. 

“God bless you. Nan !” said her sister, then remem- 
bered how, with much the same words, she had once 
parted with Basil — Basil plagued with a sudden fit of re- 
pentance. And he had gone straight from her to Lala 
Hoyos — and no matter who came between, it would be 
Lala Hoyos to the end. 

“Jem,” she said, and leaned her head against his arm, 
“it’s very good of you to care for a wretch like me. 
And perhaps if you keep on hard at it. I’ll care, too, for 
a good man like you — some day.” 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


177 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

God is ever drawing like towards like, and making them ac- 
quainted.” — Plato’s “ Lysis.” 

“ Easter couldn’t come,” explained Nan, bravely — 
bravely because something seemed to catch in her throat, 
as Hugon looked past her with a face literally sick with 
pain and hunger, and then Jem came in, and pity died, 
for Hugon, radiant with joy, had gone to meet him. 

There is a spiritual beauty, the beauty of renunciation, 
of suffering, of a struggle through pain to a higher life 
beyond, that will shine through commonest clay and 
glorify it until, as one of our greatest modern painters 
long ago discovered, often it happens that such spiritual 
grace becomes the only form of loveliness that satisfies 
our eyes, making of no account the mere splendour of 
bodily perfection. 

The bare room, the dismal patch of garden beyond, 
the pale woman in her shabby black gown, that glorious 
light upon her face. . . . Nan gasped it all, tried to un- 
derstand it, stumbled on the brink of a discovery, then, 
as Hugon turned to speak to her, saw the light go out — 
saw that it was only the poor governess who spoke, and 
answered her at random. 

Where had it gone — what had brought it there ? That 
serene look of absolute joy, contentment and . . . 
love? It came suddenly back as Jem spoke to her — 
even as when the sun strikes a folded flower, and lo ! its 
petals fall open like the leaves of a much-loved book at 
the touch of its owner’s hand, and all its beauty is made 
known. 

Nan felt her head ^oing round. A vague sense of the 
inconvenience of seeing things that nobody else saw, and 
that she was clearly not intended to see, came to her 
then, things that gave her, too, so much more pain than 
pleasure. Tout comprendre, dest tout pardonner^ only 
the comprehension must come first ; the forgiveness is a 
long way off to these young clear-eyed judges whose 


178 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


gaze will have to be blurred by bitter weeping before the 
true proportion of mercy is made known to them. 

“We expect you down at the Shaw for the Easter hol- 
idays,” Jem was saying, “ mind that !” 

Hugon shook her head. 

“ It is quite impossible,” she said. 

“That’s nonsense,” said Jem, who indeed observed 
none of those changes in Hugon that Nan did. Indeed, 
it is his total incapacity to see anything he is not actively 
looking for, that makes man the robust, successful, one- 
idea’d animal he is. “I shall just fish out the old ladies 
and ask them.” 

Nan looked timidly at Hugon when left alone with her, 
feeling that she had not been “good,” yet not knowing 
how to do anything but pity her. And Hugon looked 
kindly at this child whom she had always liked, and in a 
measure understood. Both had a grand capacity for de- 
spair, only with this difference, that Nan hoped too 
much, and learned nothing from constantly being disap- 
pointed, the other hoped for nothing, and had got used 
to it. Moreover, Hugon possessed that sort of sympathy 
for others which springs from a thorough knowledge of 
good and evil, mingled with the pity of a master mind 
for the weakness and faults of others, while Nan’s intui- 
tive comprehension of others had its root in that uni- 
versal love which loves its fellow-men because it cannot 
help loving them. 

Almost immediately Jem returned, disappointed. The 
old ladies did not know, in fact they were not sure if they 
would give any Easter holidays this year, and, he added, 
that they had been — prim. 

They presently escaped to the garden, concerning 
which Easter had given Nan more than one lively sketch. 
In her investigations, she lost Jem and Hugon, but com- 
ing suddenly upon them, it struck her that they looked 
happy, and suited one another, which was the instan- 
taneous impression (and Nan’s mind was a whole gallery 
of vivid impressions) that they conveyed to her . . . 
and immediately following it. Memory also flashed back 
a recent photograph of Basil and Easter standing at a 
bow window in Park Lane, and they too had appeared 
perfectly happy. Was happiness a question of suita- 


A MAN OF TO’DAY. 


179 


bility, after all — not love, but suitability f Jem was not 
a beauty, he was only big and strong, and Hugon was 
only Hugon, with her own strange charm. Jem could 
not wear a coat, or bear himself at all times and seasons 
like a king, as Easter looked a queen — therefore — but 
Nan got no further, and stopped short — confused. 

Just then she saw the old ladies hovering inside a dis- 
tant window, and felt a desire to make their acquaintance. 
Nan had a great reverence for old people, who, on their 
part, were never hard upon her sins, so she ventured to 
approach them, and spent a happy hour with them in a 
real old-fashioned atmosphere that made her feel, for 
once, quite happy and good. Only latterly was a wrong 
chord struck ; it was when the gentle gaze, wise from 
long experience, of Miss Harriet fell on the pair lingering 
in the garden. 

“Your sister and Mr. Burghersh are very much at- 
tached, I believe?” 

Nan agreed. 

“ But she never comes with him, though he is here so 
often,” said Miss Betsy, “and in my young days, hus- 
bands and wives always went about together.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” said Nan, respectfully. 

They were very innocent, very much behind the times, 
these dear old ladies, who, taking the girls to town for a 
treat, a decade or so before Easter’s time, had landed 
them all at Cremorne Gardens, where, innocently and 
intelligently, the whole party had enjoyed itself down to 
the ground and taken no harm. To the pure — ^we know 
the rest ; and the old ladies never found out that 
Cremorne was not a beautiful public garden specially 
arranged for the improvement and enjoyment of high 
class ladies’ schools. 

“You are not a bit like Easter,” said Miss Betsy, with 
something wistful in her look as she put the child’s curly, 
rich hair back from her wide brow. 

“ No, ma’am ; I’m afraid you’d have found me a lot of 
trouble. I’m nearly always naughty, and then I’m — 
sorry. ” 

They both kissed her as if in despite of her wicked- 
ness, though their looks were cold enough when Jem and 
Hugon came in. As the moment of parting grew near, 


i8o 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


Hugon’s face became like a transparent mask behind 
which the light was being slowly extinguished inch by 
inch . . . before it was quite out, Nan without a word 
put up her face, and in farewell kissed her. 

“ Now, don’t forget,” said Jem, cheerily, as he wrung 
her hand, ‘ ‘ that we expect you down for the holidays at 
the Shaw.” 

He looked round at the old ladies defiantly, whose 
“primness” he warmly resented, but Hugon’s lips only 
moved — her face was wan as the dead. 

When the door had closed upon the child and man, 
she groped her way upstairs like one blind, and the old 
ladies heard her door shut and the key turn. 

“Sister,” said Miss Betsy, “I wish we had had a 
reference with Mademoiselle Hugon. She came to us 
with nothing — not even a Christian name on her linen — 
nothing but a faultless French accent — still, she did very 
well till she went to Penroses. She came back changed. 
She is half dead except when Mr. Burghersh comes here, 
and then she is alive — ^and beautiful. And that giddy 
young wife does not see. I will have nothing to do with 
sending Mademoiselle again to Penroses — and to-night I 
shall tell her so.” 

They were not hard old ladies, they were only 
intensely narrow-minded, and when Hugon heard Miss 
Betsy, she knew that they were actually giving her the 
opportunity of saving her soul alive — only when the 
stake is one’s very last chance of human happiness, often 
the soul loses. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

** To endure misfortune is greater than to die.” — C aesar. 

Jem had arranged to drop Nan at Penroses, then drive 
Easter home afterwards, but there was a curious quietude 
and absence of welcome about the place when they ar- 
rived, and the girls’ hearts sank, as entering the house 
from the stables, they knocked at the Green-room door, 
and went in. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


i8i 


Tom was sitting over a fire — a fire, when without doors 
spring was coming up with a rush, and the room smelled 
of doctor’s stuff, brandy, and had that peculiar airless- 
ness which to the atmosphere of a house is what the dry- 
rot is to a man’s soul — for there must be movement, 
there must be air in a dwelling-place for health of body, 
and when the breath of hope ceases to play through the 
chambers of the spirit, a man is no better at life’s feast 
than the deaf one who sits down to enjoy at his leisure a 
meadow-scape full of light and shadow, the whole mean- 
ing of which he misses, because he cannot hear the 
million sounds that give life and meaning to the picture. 
There it all lies, but it is so still ... no sound of bird 
voices (so much more akin to God than any human 
ones), no rustle of leaf or grain, no multitudinous hum 
of insect, or murmur of field and forest creeping thing ; 
they are all there, but he hears them not, and though he 
sees what is spread out before him, he does not feel it in all 
its glorious completeness, any more than the earth could 
be aught but void without the spirit of God moved, now 
as air, now as the mighty wind, ever upon its face, and 
the face of its waters. 

“ Father !” cried Easter, with a sob in her throat, mar- 
velling that she could ever have found the courage, ay, 
and the ingratitude, to run away from this broken man 
who with two patches of hectic on his cheeks, and a wild 
look in his eyes, started up at sight of them, but softened 
as the two girls ran into his arms where he held them to 
him, and all forgetful of Easter’s undutifulness, kissed 
her fondly, though it was Nan whom he kissed longest, 
and held closest to his heart. 

When he had retired to the window, and under pre- 
tence of blowing his nose had removed unwonted tears 
from his cheeks, Easter began to dry hers also, for though 
greatly troubled at the change in him, she felt keenly that 
it was Nan whom her father was really glad to see, not 
herself; and the grief or suffering that is independent of 
us, that we cannot touch with a finger, or soothe with the 
balm of our sympathy is not vital — not a part of us, and 
leaves most of us selfish ones somewhat indifferent and 
cold. It was of Nan, and what Nan had done in town, 
that Tom enquired when he returned, and it was observ- 

i6 


i 82 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


able that he did not enquire for Jem — ^who tarried unac- 
countably. 

Even Easter’s air of fashion, perhaps by contrast to his 
own estate, seemed to affect Tom disagreeably, and, after 
those first moments of expansion, and one or two dis- 
paraging glances at her raiment, he resumed his seat by 
the fire, and relapsed into silence. 

r It is hard to say what takes the heart out of a man so 
/ entirely that he acquiesces dumbly in his fate — ^and will 
{ not rise to contest it. Sometimes his failure is due to 
." Utter lack of sympathy where he most has a right to 
; expect it, for to have one faithful breast on which to pil- 
; low his head, one heart to believe and proclaim him right 
\ howsoever wrong, may make a man master of himself 
\ once more, and mail-proof against calamity, so true it is 
i that we all, strong or weak, more or less unconsciously 
i lean on one another. But oftener than not, he has him- 
self only to blame, for every man, on occasion, should be 
able to make a wall out of his own backbone, and look at 
it as you would, the supreme moment of Tom’s life had 
come, and in moral courage he failed to meet it. Physi- 
cal pluck he had in plenty, but that is nothing ; it is an 
instinct bom in some men with other hereditary vices and 
virtues ; while the power to respond worthily to a tre- 
mendous and unexpected call upon our energies is bred 
in ourselves, and no one can help us, or claim the smallest 
share in the honours we then obtain. And like many 
another man, he could not bring himself to retrace his 
steps while there was yet time, and own up to his failure, 
for he was cursed with that false pride which has impelled 
millions to ruin, causing them to devise fanciful schemes 
for the future, instead of setting themselves painfully to 
reconstruct the past, and the man who will not face his 
obligations one by one has himself to thank if at last 
they become bound into a faggot that no earthly power 
can break. 

Maria came in, bearing a bowl of beef-tea, that she 
carefully set down before welcoming her daughters, for 
she thought they might have gone to see her first, instead 
of Tom. She had not quite forgiven Easter for taking 
French leave, and I think most mothers look and feel a 
little oddly on first seeing a child lately subject to them 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


183 


empanoplied with equal rights and privileges to them- 
selves* She was preoccupied, too, with Tom, though 
possibly this poor man, going to pieces, a hopeless dere- 
lict, before her eyes, though she could not see it, could 
have put up with less excellent chicken-broth, if a little 
more sympathy had been forthcoming, but lack of com- 
prehension is almost the rule in one’s life partner, and it 
IS only a guileless fool, upon whom the lessons of life are 
wasted, who expects any. 

And there was with Mafia a tendency to argument, and 
a mild persistency in speech when silence would be golden, 
that continually rasped the choleric, passionate-hearted 
man, and it may have been in some such moments of 
spiritual starvation or frustration that Mr. Denison had 
impulsively started on his course of kicking the men-ser- 
vants and kissing the maids, and possibly Maria mixed 
up the memory of more than one pretty Mary or pretty 
Sukey with her admirable method of making beef-tea and 
broth, in such a way that the mixture did not always 
adapt itself comfortably to poor Tom’s sensibilities and 
stomach. 

“Nan,” said Mrs. Denison, with a slight sniff, when 
Tom had ungratefully taken a spoonful of beef- tea, and, 
calling it “muck,” had pushed it away, “I don’t like 
that hat at all. Where did you get it ?” 

Nan started. Her vanity had been quite in abeyance, 
but now she put up her hand guiltily, to feel if by any 
chance she had overlooked her contraband red ribbon. 
Finding it was not there, she said, — 

“ Easter gave it to me, mother,” pointing to that ele- 
gant young woman, who was just then looking out of win- 
dow, and congratulating herself on having the Shaw to 
flee to, even if she had lost Town, though there was no 
earthly reason why Town should not see her again after 
the recess. 

She was glad when Jem came in — not altogether sure 
of his reception, but perhaps his masculinity, used as 
Mr. Denison had lately been to women, roused Tom to 
be a man himself, and he made a great affort to appear 
his old self— not unsuccessfully, and when Maria and 
the girls had gone away, the two men talked seriously 
and gravely, as men will when vital issues are concerned. 


i84 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


“ I got hit over jute last summer,” said Tom, “and 
then there were those lawsuits, and I spent a fortune 
over that new machinery I got over from America to 
supersede the hand-looms, and the work is a failure, and 
most of my Government contracts have been thrown 
back upon my hands — but I’ve got an idea,” and he 
proceeded to explain. 

Jem listened, and shook his head. 

“No man ever yet gambled himself out of debt,” he 
urged, ‘ ‘ and the business is all right still. Look into 
things — cut expenses down — ^go to the works every day, 
and face every soul with whom you have not been able to 
keep your engagements, and you’ll pull through all right 
yet. ’ ’ 

But this was just what Mr. Denison would not do. He 
had made a town out of a village of mud hovels, and by 
the wages he gave clothed the male factory hands in 
broadcloth, and the women in silks and gewgaws, but 
when it came to facing and discharging one-half of them, 
or even asking them to work at reduced wages, he simply 
had not the pluck to go and do it, and told his son-in-law 
so straight. 

“Man ! man !” cried Jem, coming close up to him, 
and speaking with that vital roughness which sends new 
life in electric shocks through a physically and morally run- 
down fellow-creature, ‘ ‘ every day this fatal lethargy, that 
has crept over you, will become more impossible to shake 
off, and at last it will be too late — even if you wanted 
to act, it will be too late. There is nothing irrevocable but 
death,” urged Jem, keeping his temper, when Mr. Deni- 
son broke out into passionate words, ‘ ‘ even dishonour 
may be lived down in time — and no such stigma yet 
attaches itself to you, or your name. Let me help you 
— what I can do without wrong to Easter I will — there 
must be some way out, without another mad speculation.” 

But this was too much. To a man who had certainly 
lost thousands, but saw millions in a new idea, such aa- 
vice was insulting, and in a burst of extraordinarily sultry 
language, Jem sadly beat a retreat, and drove Easter 
home to the Hangingshaw. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


185 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

** The man is very simple who thinks that when human nature is 
eagerly set on doing a thing, he has any means of diverting it, either 
by law or any other terror.” 

“What !” cried Easter, throwing out her arms, and 
standing transfixed in the middle of the room. 

‘ ‘ He came into the schoolroom as if he had never 
gone away,” began Nan, whose hat was as much askew, 
her gloves as full of holes, and her frock as tattered as if 
she had never tasted any Town joys in her life. 

‘ ‘ And what did he say ?’ ’ cried Easter, breathlessly. 

“ That he had come to see father. At first the Chief 
wouldn’t hear of it, so Basil just walked straight into the 
Green-room, and was there two hours. Mother wanted 
him to take her round the garden after that, to find out 
about things, you know, but he hadn’t time — and Dinkie 
drove him to the station afterwards. Dinkie looked him 
all over carefully to see what it was that made me say he 
was such a swell in Town, but he couldn’t see any differ- 
ence in him anywhere — he was just the old Basil — my 
Basil, ’ ’ added the child, triumphantly. 

‘ ‘ Did he — did he enquire for me ?’ ’ exclaimed Easter, 
sitting down absently on a ball-gown — for she and her 
maid had been in the full swing of a dress rehearsal when 
Nan had rushed in. 

‘ ‘ Why should he ?’ ’ said the child, almost austerely. 

‘ ‘ I suppose he came to help father, because — oh ! Easter, 
never tell anybody, but the tears were rolling down poor 
father’s cheeks when I stole in after Basil had gone — I 
crept out again — and he never knew it — but I saw them.” 

“ Basil is a dear,” said Easter, warmly, and Nan, on the 
point of eager agreement, stopped short ; somehow she 
never encouraged Basil and Easter’s praise of each other 
now, though there had been a time when she never 
wearied of trying to bring them together. 

“ He might have come over,” said Easter, to whom a 
fortnight of the country and its joys, of Jem and domes- 

16* 


i86 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


ticity, had more than sufficed, and when you are scouring 
the heavens for a particular star in the sky, it is madden- 
ing to find it has popped out while your back is turned, 
and gone in again, probably for a long time. 

Both Lala Hoyos and Basil had been invited to Fitz- 
walters for the holidays, and the party must have assem- 
bled by now, for to-morrow was Good Friday, but Basil’s 
appearance at Penroses, and return to Town meant he 
was not coming to Fitzwalters ; he would not have gone 
to her father if — if — thus subtly do women reason. 

Jem at this moment put his head gingerly in at the 
door, showing a ruddy countenance illumined by much 
content. 

“ Do come in or go away,” cried Easter ; “ if there’s 
anything I hate, it’s a person going about as if he were 
beheaded !” 

Thus encouraged, Jem advanced, a heavenly odour 
hanging around him, and nodding affectionately to Nan, 
popped a strawberry into Easter’s reluctant mouth. 

The strawberry was sharp and stung Easter’s palate, 
yet its scent had held a whole world of enticement, 
“ like Basil,” she thought, “who might be just as disap- 
pointing when eaten as that strawberry.” “Jem,” she 
said, eying him over unfavourably, “isn’t it nearly time 
for you to go and meet Hugon?” 

“No. Her train doesn’t get in for another three 
hours.” 

“Well, then,” said Easter, still irritably, “go away 
somewhere^ and don’t comeback till luncheon.” 

Jem went off obediently, perhaps because it was lunch- 
eon-time now, kissing her first, poor fellow, as he always 
did, whether he had an excuse or no. 

“O, Nan,” cried Easter, wildly, and pushing her 
hair back from her forehead, ‘ ‘ how little it takes to make 
some people happy, and others how much !’ ’ 

Nan glanced round at the room made livable by long 
generations of mothers, and all that Jem’s love and taste 
could do for it, at the many windows that had such 
glorious outlooks on so fair a kingdom, and lastly, at 
the young wife standing in the midst of all her splendid 
gauds with a sting in her heart that had brought out two 
angry roses on her cheeks, and a restless, thwarted look 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 187 

into her eyes that boded ill for somebody — possibly her- 
self. 

“ Easter,” cried the child, struck by a sudden resem- 
blance, ” don’t look like that — it’s just like father looks 
when he will take his own way, and it’s bad for him, 
poor, poor father !” 

” Nan,” said Easter, smartly, “go home and stick to 
your school books. What fun I had in this,” she added, 
restlessly, as she picked up a cloth of silver and pink 
gown, ‘‘and this” — and she touched a dress of Seville 
orange velvet edged with black fox — ‘‘but I think I love 
Fenwick’s grey driving coat best of all, such good times 
I had in it on Basil’s coach !” 

‘‘And if you wanted to go on a coach,” said Nan, 
‘‘why didn’t you make Jem have one?” 

Easter shuddered. 

‘‘ He would always want me on the box-seat,” she 
said. ‘‘Lala says it’s so almost impossible to make a 
respectable woman interesting, but it’s muck harder to 
make a respectable man so ! Isn’t this tea-gown a 
dream ?’ ’ and Easter held out a soft, white silk wrapper 
smothered in Mechlin, with enormous sleeves, caught up 
to the very shoulder, to show the bare arms below ; ‘‘it’s 
imitiorally lovely, and so I told Fenwick, and that an 
ugly woman who dared to put it on, ought to be prose- 
cuted !” 

‘‘ I shouldn’t have thought you’d find Mrs. Hoyos 
worth quoting,” said Nan, looking away from that white 
snare, as if she hated it. 

‘‘O, yes, I do. You must talk by telegram nowa- 
days, or you don’t get a hearing, and everything must 
be boiled down to a spoonful, or you won’t trouble to 
swallow it. We want the bottom fact of everything and 
no more — so exit the Book, and enter the Penny Comic. 
Nan, how did he look ?” 

‘‘ He hadn’t got a new face. I think I’ve seen his coat 
before too.” 

‘‘ Don’t try to be clever, child. Hadn’t you got the 
sense to ask if he were coming to Fitzwalters ?” 

‘‘No, Easter, I’d got the sense not to. He was just 
the same to me as he used to be,” burst out Nan, warmly, 
‘‘ he’s all right when he is away from Town. It’s a beau- 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


1 88 

tiful place,” added Nan, sighing, “but dreadfully wicked 
— Dinkie is quite sure it hasn’t improved me.'^ 

“You are an ungrateful young monkey,” said Easter. 
“ Did he say if he were coming back? Do ask father.” 

It was a heavy heart that Nan took down to luncheon, 
where Dinkie, who was a natural gourmand, impatiently 
awaited them, while Easter on her part greeted him with 
real pleasure, for she greatly missed his buffooneries in 
the elegant solitude of the Shaw, and moreover meant 
to pump him presently, when she got a chance, about 
Basil. 

Dinkie was enjoying himself so much, indeed, that 
presently he began to grumble — grumbling being our 
propitiatory offering to the jealous gods lest they should 
slay us. 

“And if we’re going to bust-up,” he announced, in his 
cheerful bellow, during a temporary absence of the ser- 
vants from the table, “why, let us bust. If there ain’t 
any ’oss-’air for me to go into, what’s the good of my 
learning the business? I’d far better buy a besom and 
go to Town, where with my good looks, and the family 
cheek, I ought to be able to make a very decent thing of 
it, and Nan would make a capital street arab, and if she 
behaves herself, might come too, especially if she learns 
to do cartwheels properly.” 

Just then Jem came in — not alone — with a swish of 
petticoats, and mingling of voices that turned Easter 
rigid, and arrested the hand that was feeding the dogs 
with biscuits. Basil had gone, and returned again . . . 
she could not have moved or looked round if her life 
had depended on it, while Dinkie, helping himself largely 
to some more stone-cream, fixed an impudently apprais- 
ing eye on Lala’s hat, which was of a shape hitherto un- 
known to him. 

“How are you, dear?” enquired that lady’s unem- 
barrassed voice behind Easter; “we only came down 
yesterday, but thought we’d look you up, and ask you to 
give us some luncheon— only Bill took a wrong turning 
as usual, and made us disgracefully late.” 

Easter suddenly recovered her voice, and the power of 
her limbs. She rose and shook hands with her guests, 
while the servants began to re-arrange the table, and the 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 189 

dogs yelped in a piercing chorus that would have been 
impressive if they had only kept time. 

“ Lovely weather, ain’t it, Mrs. Burghersh?” said Bill, 
cheerfully, as he got out of a driving coat, composed 
mainly of buttons. “Always a glorious Good Friday, 
you know, when we ought to be howling for our sins, 
and a blizzard or a deluge on Easter Sunday when you’ve 
got your prayers over, and earned the right to enjoy 
yourselves. You and Burghersh’ 11 come over to dine 
and sleep to-morrow, won’t you ? Awfully starchy lot of 
people this time — everybody abroad you know, or look- 
ing at fellows’ pictures, and so on. Eh?’’ This last in 
answer to Dinkie, who, keenly scenting an “outing,” 
was whispering something into his ear. 

“I’ve got a swallow-tail,” said Dinkie, “at least 
father has, you know, ask me.^* 

“Certainly. Mr. ?” 

“I’ve met you before — got a father who makes chair- 
bottoms, you know — Ha! ha I My name’s Dinkie.^' 

‘ ‘ Sounds like a Christy Minstrel. And that little girl 
over there. I’ve seen her before — bring her along too.” 

“I’m afraid,” said Dinkie, carefully avoiding Easter’s 
eye, “she is scarcely presentable enough, girls want such 
a lot of dressing up — but give a man two sets of togs, 
and there he is, don’t you know?” 

“I didn’t blame you for running away as you did,” 
said Lala, looking a picture of coolness in her tailor- 
made coat and skirt of white drill, as she discussed her 
cutlet. ‘ ‘ Lenten festivities are like brandy and soda 
with the brandy left out — and the country is looking 
charming now. What a dear old place this is I’ ’ she 
added, glancing round. “Bill, why can’t you make 
your old barn comfortable like this ?’ ’ 

“ You’re always so fearfully down on my place,” said 
Bill, looking hurt ; “if you hate it so, why do you come 
down to it? And there ain’t a soul to amuse you now 
Strokoff has played us false again — it’s very odd, but 
while Town’s a haystack in which you can always find 
Basil as the missing needle, we always seem to lose him 
when he gets into this neighbourhood.” 

“Only,” said Lala, her grey eyes narrowing as she 
looked at the spoonful of cream she was carrying to her 


190 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


lips, “this time he doesn’t happen to be in this neighbour- 
hood.” 

Easter grasped the situation. For once Basil had 
given his Sultana the slip, promised to come to Fitz- 
walters, and failed to do so, and she had come over to 
the Hangingshaw — to enquire. 

“No, he is not in the neighbourhood now,” said 
Easter, calmly, ‘ ‘ but he was yesterday. ’ ’ 

The eyes of the two women met. There was an odd 
light in Easter’s, and she smiled dangerously. Jem 
flushed scarlet, and bent his head lower over his plate. 
Nan looked scared, and Bill with difficulty repressed a 
whistle, then inwardly swore at Basil for making such a 
fool of him — and of Lala. So this was why she had 
dragged him over to the Shaw — to look for Basil — ^and 
now he supposed the two women would be cutting each 
other to ribbons — for there was a devilry about Mrs. 
Burgh ersh to-day that astonished him — he didn’t think 
she had it in her — for the triangular arrangement in Town 
had always puzzled him. 

Could not anybody see that Strokoflf was mad after 
Easter, and that Lala, who loved him herself, was aiding 
and abetting him ? And then the women had apparently 
quarrelled, and Lala had come out first in the class, and 
now it was Easter who scored, and Bill carefully avoided 
looking at Jem, and roughly pitied him for a fool. 

“Awfully good chap, Strokoff,” said Dinkie, his 
mouth full of preserved fruits, “and as to his cravats, 
he ought to have a medal for the way he ties ’em — if he 
hadn’t seemed so down in the mouth last night. I’d have 
got him to show me how he did it !” 

Easter laughed, and got up, somehow missing Lala, 
who sauntered alone into those drawing-rooms that were 
as different as possible to her own green and yellow 
salons, yet that in their splendid glow of colour suited 
Easter perfectly, while the trees of cizaleas, throwing aloft 
their thousand blooms of white and scarlet, especially 
aroused Mrs. Hoyos’ admiration, and she sank into a 
chair to admire them. 

And yet without these azaleas, and in the winter, when 
a man alternately hunted and shot, and snored — it might 
become hateful, unless indeed Basil should make a habit 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


191 


of pervading the neighbourhood ... in that case . . . 
the luxurious chair stifled her, she got up abruptly, and 
went out with Nan, who, feeling it her duty to be polite, 
offered timidly to show her the garden. 

“Jem,” Easter said, as she rushed into the study to 
which he had retreated (Dinkie and Bill having gone off 
to the stables together), “ I hate that woman — I hate her 
— it shall be pull devil, pull baker between us, and I’ll 
win, I will — / will'' 

“Win what?” said Jem, holding his wife away from 
him, and looking gravely into her passionate face. 

“ O ! don’t you see, Jem, that she came down to Fitz- 
walters because she thought Prince Strokoff was going 
to be there, and when she found he wasn’t, that I should 
be as disappointed as she was, and so she came over to- 
day just to crow over me? Well, I crowed loudest, and 
longest — that’s all ! It’s vulgar — it’s low, Jem, but O ! 
it’s sweet !” 

‘ ‘ And what was Strokoff doing in this neighbour- 
hood?” said Jem, who did not appear to find anything 
at all sweet in the situation, and whose mouth and chin 
seemed to have taken new, stern curves to which his wife 
was not accustomed. 

“ I fancy he came to try and help father.” 

“ Easter,” said Jem, quietly, “ why don’t you let these 
two, Prince Strokoff and Mrs. Hoyos, alone ? They are 
old friends — and will continue to be such to the end — un- 
less I am very much mistaken.” 

A husband’s sound advice is often good, and rarely 
taken, and Easter did not know how much those few 
words covered in Jem’s reticent, magnanimous soul. In 
after days he cursed himself for his silence, and always 
thought that if he had spoken plainly to her that day, 
events would have been different, but I am sure that he 
would have spoken in vain — for deafer than the adder to 
reason was Easter at that time, and strange but true it is, 
that our worst acts and follies are committed because we 
wish to assert ourselves with those whom we despise, and 
who are potent with us for evil, while what we truly love 
has no power to influence us for good. 

And to guide a high-mettled, high-spirited young 
creature such as Easter was a perilous task, as Jem well 


192 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


knew, though her principles were too good, he thought, 
to allow her to get into serious trouble. One can’t be 
bred up on the Bible without imbibing some of its pre- 
cepts, adopting some of its tenets, and under all the foam 
of Easter’s fancies he knew that there beat a very true 
and steadfast heart indeed, which would right itself, he 
was certain, in the end. 

“Jem !” said Easter, by way of answer to this, the 
only appeal he ever made to her, “ don’t look at me like 
that ! I hate physic. And now come along and make 
yourself pleasant to Mrs. Hoyos.” 

They met her coming from the White Pavilion, and 
complaining of the April wind, that never ruffled her 
without revealing some daintiness of petticoat, or shoe, 
or stocking, daintier in her surely than in any other 
woman. 

Only when her temper was ruffled as now — for she had 
pumped Nan in vain as to Basil’s plans — it did not afford 
charming peeps at her character, as did the breeze of 
her lingerie ; quite the reverse, indeed, and probably 
the nearest approach to hating a woman that she had 
ever known in all her successful life made itself felt now, 
as Easter, radiant, and with mocking eyes, came towards 
her. 

“I’ve sent Bill for the dog-cart,’’ Lala said, easily, 
‘ ‘ we must allow at least three or four hours for accidents, 
and reckon ourselves fortunate if we reach Fitzwalters in 
time for dinner. I think that this must be the original 
Garden of Eden, do you know ? Take care,’’ she added, 
‘ ‘ that the Serpent does not get in and spoil it !’ ’ 

“What kind of Serpent,’’ Mrs. Hoyos?’’ enquired 
Jem, gravely. 

Mrs. Hoyos laughed, looking straight into Jem’s eyes, 
that met hers unflinchingly ; then she changed the sub- 
ject. Almost immediately. Bill, closely escorted by 
Dinkie, appeared, and as they went towards the dog-cart, 
urgently renewed his invitation to them all to come over, 
and stay as long as possible. 

But Easter excused herself. Mademoiselle Hugon was 
coming, she said, and when Bill included the governess 
also, Easter still declined — she was too busy, she said, 
just now. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


193 


‘‘You are expecting Prince Strokoff, perhaps?” said 
Lala. 

“Yes. Can I give him any message for you ?” 

‘‘I say, Easter,” whispered Dinkie in her ear, har- 
assed by fears lest the shirts, ties, waistcoats, and other 
necessaries required for a three days’ visit to Fitzwalters 
would not be forthcoming, and also by grievous misgiv- 
ings that the Chiefs slight corporation would destroy the 
set of his evening’s bags on Dinkie’ s straight person, 
“you’ll help me out with some of Jem’s things, if I run 
short, won’ t you ?’ ’ 

“You’ve got to get father’s consent first,” said Nan, 
tripping up his heels, and feeling that she was very much 
out of it indeed, and consequently trembling on the 
verge of tears. 

‘ ‘ There is no need of messages between two such old 
friends,” said Lala, as she stepped neatly into the dog- 
cart. “ Basil and I will meet again in Town almost im- 
mediately, and every day, as usual — Good-bye. No 
chance of your coming up to finish the season, I sup- 
pose? Good-bye, Mr. Burghersh, and don’t forget my 
advice about your Eden. ’ ’ 

“ I won’t. I’m proud of my garden, and I pity from 
my soul those who have no garden to cherish. ’ ’ 

Lala laughed, but for once in her life, her eyes fell be- 
fore the resolute ones of a man whom she found it as 
utterly impossible to despise, as to deceive. 

“Good-bye, everybody,” said Bill, lugubriously, and 
looking something like a dog tied up with string, who 
is left to the tender mercies of cats ; “if Strokoff does 
turn up, tell him ” 

But a smart cut from the whip in Mrs. Hoyos’ hand 
made the horse bound forward in such fashion, that the 
remainder of Billy’s valedictory message was inaudible. 


X 


n 


17 


194 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

“ I here you saye, farewel ; Nay, nay, 

We departe not so sone. 

Why say ye so ? wheder wyll ye go ? 

Alas ! what have ye done?” 

There is a story told of a man, who, frozen to the box 
one furiously inclement night, brought coach and passen- 
gers safely to their destination, the reins gripped fast in 
his stiff hands, and only by his grim silence and immo- 
bility, was presently discovered to be dead. And it was 
from luck more than actual guiding power, that Hugon’s 
strong will brought her alive to the Shaw, and on the 
very threshold threw her down, a mere log, that Jem 
lifted up, and carried into the house, pitifully as a man 
might. 

The doctor shook his head over the unconscious figure, 
talked of nerve-exhaustion, and had her put immediately 
to bed, where she was tended by Easter and her maid, 
but if the doctor had looked deeper than that brilliant 
rose-bloom of Mrs. Burghersh’s which hid so much, even 
her real character and disposition, he would have discov- 
ered that the poor girl was ill herself, and she did not 
know it. Had there been perfect confidence between her 
and her mother, all might yet have been well, but Mrs. 
Denison seldom went beyond her own threshold, and she 
had less reason than ever to go now, while a visit to the 
Shaw was at present quite out of the question. Babies, 
beef-tea, Tom, her household and her needle- work, were 
surely enough to keep any woman’s hands full, and 
though fond of Easter, she by no means erred on the side 
of over-appreciation of her, or her good looks. Indeed, 
on being informed by Nan that Easter had been chron- 
icled in the town papers as the most beautiful young 
woman at more than one assembly, she had nippingly re- 
marked that she did not think the other ones could have 
been up to much. 

The question of health must always be reckoned with 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


195 


as an important factor in our lives, and physical causes 
will often take the form of moral aberrations that arouse 
in the beholders anger, where they should call forth pity 
and help. With health we can face the world, without 
it we are like a man who aims a blow truly enough, but 
strikes aside because the blade is faulty, and incapable of 
carrying out his will. 

So when our nerves are unstrung, the foe that we have 
hitherto fought doughtily gets beyond us, and wrong be- 
comes right, and right wrong, for it is only when we are 
sane in mind and body that we know how entirely we 
have been the victims of delirium, just as in our delirium 
we believed ourselves sane. 

And when some man or woman of strong character 
fails grievously at some given point, be sure that physical 
reasons have had much to say to the failure, and I speak 
more especially of women, for men are rarely nervous, 
and what good or ill they do is usually quite irrespective 
of nerves, or false conditions of health, while if any one 
thing on earth marks out more distinctly than another 
the difference between the sexes, it is the power a man 
has of sleeping soundly under every possible combination 
of circumstances. He can drive a woman mad, kill her 
if needs be, or, on the other hand, have his heart broken 
in two halves by a woman, and he can sleep the whole 
night through after it — and snore. It is thus that men 
beat us, not by intellect, but having no nerves, yet a 
woman without sensibility is a poor creature, more, she 
is a maddening one, and rasps you like an old file. 

Hugon was more ill than Easter, inasmuch as her 
break-down was the result of long years of agony, and 
iron self-repression, relieved by one oasis of happiness 
only to be followed by months of acute suffering, that 
had culminated in the fierce struggle she had gone 
through before finally throwing away a home for the sake 
of seeing Jem once more, though she would want no 
home long, for she was dying; she never questioned the 
fact as she lay too weak for speech, following Easter with 
her eyes, Easter, who was not happy, even though she 
had the one man worth loving out of the whole world to 
love her. Hugon had very little consciousness of any- 
thing save that when the supreme moment came, perhaps 


196 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


Jem would come to her, and let her clasp her arms about 
his neck, and thank him for all the good he had done 
her, for all the love he had taught fcr, for that light 
which he had brought into her life, and made it beautiful, 
for no matter what long intervals of darkness and hunger 
there had been, in his company the sun shone out, and 
she dreamed the only dream that makes life worth living. 

Perhaps if Jem had not come again to Fairmile after 
that amazing discovery she had made, her love might 
have remained always in that phase of exaltation in 
which it demanded nothing for itself, being in its very 
conception foredoomed to sacrifice, but the warm human 
joy that his gentleness and companionship had brought 
into her life was only at last gauged by the actual 
physical pain she experienced when deprived of it, and 
all the stifled longings and passions that strove together 
like starving children in her breast were left to beat them- 
selves against a stony silence, in which the beloved voice, 
and face, and step never came. 

“Keep yourself from idols” — but it was too late for 
such keeping back now. She could have done without 
him before, but she could not do without him now — she 
would not — so she had cried in her unappeasable desire 
to see him once again, and for this she had trampled 
honour and principle under foot, and heedless of loyalty 
to Easter — of respect to herself— had, when at the very 
end of her strength, contrived to drag herself to the 
Hangingshaw. 

When very near to death, we think we have a right to 
the one cold cup of water we crave — we shall want nothing 
else for so long, we argue, and perhaps, if Hugon had 
died then, much might have been forgiven her, and this 
story had not needed to be told, but she did not die — to 
the great misfortune of herself and to others. 

It is humiliating to reflect that we may go through the 
supremest spiritual suffering — die a thousand deaths from 
unsupportable anguish — yet recover, while a slight acci- 
dent to our physical machinery will hurry us out of the 
world, often without pain, at a moment’s notice. 

And so it happened that rest, care, perhaps the handful 
of flowers that Jem sent her each day, the sound of his 
voice in the passage — the certainty that she was near 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


197 


him, conspired to heal the sick woman, so that, as 
Easter’s fever grew, Hugon’s lessened, each woman 
being preoccupied to the extent of not being able to 
see an inch into the other’s heart. 

I suppose that to most of us comes a period in our 
lives when, having fought to our human uttermost, even 
beyond it, we fight no more, but laying down our arms, 
suffer ourselves to drift, and abandoning all moral suasion, 
allow our hearts to say to us what they will. We no 
longer, measuring our powers by our desires, and over- 
estimating them, say, “We will do this or not,’’ we are 
as little children, depending on the love and pity of 
others, knowing that we shall not depend in vain. And 
at last Hugon saw Jem — through the half-opened door, 
reflected in a mirror, saw Easter held in his strong clasp, 
while the murmur of his kisses reached her ear — such 
was the fulfilment of her desire, and a nameless fury 
seized and blinded her ; she could have leaped upon and 
torn them asunder, as, white and menacing, she reared 
herself in her bed, then hid herself shuddering as she 
realized into what an abyss a once half-divine passion had 
plunged her. Yet in that abyss she remained; hence- 
forth, she said, deliberately, “Evil, be thou my good.” 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

“ Now take frae me that feather bed ! 

Make me a bed o’ strae ! 

I wish I hadna lived this day, 

To mak’ my heart sae wae.” 

What was going on at Fitzwalters — this is what Easter 
wanted to know, and which even Dinkie could not tell 
her ; poor Dinkie, who, with the pick of his father’s 
wardrobe tied up in a sack, was just setting out on his 
stolen visit, when Tom appeared on the scene, and taking 
up the thread of family life precisely where he had laid it 
down, made things “hum’’ at Penroses. 

17* 


198 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


It soon became known that he had tided over his diffi- 
culties, and to outsiders he was — as a factory hand de- 
scribed it — “as harbitrarya gent as ever,” but those who 
could read between the lines found a great alteration in 
him, and I don’t think that look ever went out of his 
face which gets ground into it when a man has once 
stood face to face with ruin. Even to Nan he was altered 
in a measure — taking some manly shame to himself for 
having leaned upon so frail a support, but she was his 
favourite child still, and when he one day proposed to 
drive her over to see Easter (Maria being detained by 
some nursery catastrophe), the child rushed to array her- 
self, and in her anxiety to do justice to the occasion, 
made a more amazing guy of herself than usual. To sit 
with her father behind those fast-trotting horses — to see 
him cheerily point out this and that object, and note the 
healthy interest he took in field and hedgerow, and land- 
scape — was the keenest joy to her, after those miserable 
weeks he had spent within doors — those nights when, 
creeping to his door, she had heard his broken ejacula- 
tions, his grinding teeth, and worst of all, those curses he 
had heaped upon himself for the mad speculations that 
had brought him to such a pass. And now — the sun 
shone — the sweet spring wind blew over them, and Tom, 
softened and grateful at the prevention of a great calam- 
ity, had felt a wish to see Easter, and for the first time 
probably, almost forgave her that runaway marriage. 

When she ran out to welcome him, his warm embrace 
and concerned, “You are not looking well, my girl,” 
brought tears to her eyes, and shaming her of that pre- 
occupation with self, that had made her almost oblivious 
of him in his late troubles; while Jem’s heart sank at 
Tom’s speech, he could see for himself that Easter was 
not well, and with all his liking for Hugon, he wished 
she had been ill anywhere on earth rather than at the 
Hangingshaw, for he set down Easter’s changed looks to 
a sick-room atmosphere, also in a measure to the bore- 
dom of receiving those callers, whose carriage- wheels had 
been cutting up the courtyard gravel ever since they had 
returned home. And it would not have comforted him 
to know that they all thought her very lovely — extremely 
delicate, and not at all happy. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 1 99 

“Well?” said Easter, flashing round on Nan when at 
last they were alone together. 

She did not even mention Basil’s name — he was in the 
air, in her heart, in every voice that came to her, in the 
breath of every passing flower. She could not free her- 
self of his influence, or think of Jem, or Hugon, or any 
of the things nearest to her, but only of him. 

Nan did not even affect to misunderstand. 

“ He has not been to Penroses again,” she said, grave- 
ly. ‘ ‘ Where is Hugon ?’ ’ 

They were out in the grounds now, and Easter, look- 
ing up at one of the distant windows, sighed impatiently. 

“She has been ill,” she said; “then was better, and 
is now ill again. I can’t make out what is on her mind. 
I wanted Jem to try and find out, but she seemed to go 
mad at the bare idea of seeing him, and yet. Nan, would 
you believe it? — I caught her kissing and crying over 
some bits of moss and fern he had brought in from the 
woods to her the other day ! She’s either a little mad — 
or a little bad — or perhaps both.” 

“Don’t say that,” cried Nan. “Oh, Easter, I was 
reading some lines the other day — I daresay you’d call 
them silly — they’re so simple, but they run in my head so : 

Thinking, with sadness, 

If badness there be, 

It might have been badness 
In thee or in me. . . .’ 

p’r’aps because I’m so wicked myself; I do feel sorry for 
people who may try as hard to be good as I do — and fail 
nearly as often.” 

“Well, mingle your badness together,” said Easter, 
flippantly. “Take her over to Penroses — Jem grudges 
every minute I spend with her — and really, between the 
pair of them, I find life uncommonly dull just now !” 

“And it’s so lovely here,” said Nan, looking wistfully 
around her, “and you’ve nobody to sit upon you, or 
make you do lessons, or anything but what you like, 
Easter!” 

“ Haven’t I ?” said Easter, in a curious tone. “Well, 
take my advice, and never get married. Nan — the one 
man business is so very monotonous 1” 


200 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


“Just think if you’d got nobody to love you at all !” 
cried Nan, warmly. 

‘ ‘ I think I should survive it — I never had a taste for 
molasses myself, or enjoy anything in my dinner so much 
as the savoury — and the number of them is so limited ! 
By the way, has Bunkulorum gone a buster on snails 
lately? After all, do you know, I shouldn’t wonder if 
he turns out the real man of taste in the family ! One 
must have courage to experimentalize like that — it’s a bit 
of the Chief coming out in him, just as it does occasion- 
ally in me.” 

“There is a deal of human nature in us Denisons,” 
said Nan, sorrowfully. 

“Nan,” said Easter, abruptly, “who saved father? — 
Basil?” 

“ Father never said a word.” 

“ But it was Basil?” 

“ I think so,” said Nan, reluctantly. 

“And why did he do it?” Exultant, proud, with a 
strange intoxication in it, Easter’s voice rang out — but to 
Nan it sounded only — wicked. 

“ He always liked father,” she said, gravely. 

‘ ‘ But a man does not throw away a fortune for — a 
liking. Would he have done as much for Lala Hoyos, I 
wonder ?’ ’ 

“Oh, Easter,” cried Nan, shocked. “Why do you 
say such things? I don’t know you ; it is not like you.” 

“No; but I am like father,” said Easter, nodding 
resolutely. “ If he chooses to do a thing, he will do it, 
whether it’s right or wrong — and so will I.” 

Nan trembled. This new glimpse of Easter, all ob- 
scured as her character had always been by her beauty, 
appalled her, while the hint it gave of hidden strength 
for good or evil, was a still greater revelation. 

“You have all been wrong about me — quite wrong,” 
continued Easter, calmly, and talking her heart out as 
people had a knack of doing to Nan. “I have been 
treated like a child, patted on the head for my stupid 
good looks — even Jem’s eyes have misled him more or 
less all along — and as to Basil, he simply never got 
through the disguise of my skin. It’s very hard for one’s 
heart and character to show through — but there’s a very 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


201 


real me under it all, Nan — I shan’t say I — it’s me. I’ve 
got father’s temper and wrong-headedness on some 
points, and mother’s calm stiff-neckedness in others, and 
they make me bad to beat when I do make up my mind 
about anything, as you will all see.” 

She did not add that she had her mother’s high princi- 
ples too, perhaps would not know it till the occasion came 
to test them. She was stripping from their stalks the 
flowers she had gathered coming up the terrace, and her 
eyes now turned away to the dim coast-line beyond the 
woods, as if she sought in it to read her fate. 

“ Why should one’s value depend so greatly on one’s 
setting ?’ ’ she said at last. ‘ ‘ At Penroses he seemed to 
me only a very handsome and impertinent stranger — in 
Town he was king over all the rest, yet he sought me be- 
fore all women . . . and we were very happy together 
till you came between us. Nan, and interrupted us.” 

Nan could find no answer to make, and Easter after a 
pause went on again. 

‘‘We should have quarrelled soon, no doubt — ^got tired 
of one another, only there was not time for that — I wish 
there had been. As it is, it just left me hungry — always 
hungry — Nan, longing to see him again, as one wants to 
know the end of the half-finished play, from which one 
has been abruptly hurried. . . . Oh ! I married too soon. 
Nan, too soon ! I should have had my fun out — I am 
like one of the brides of whom Heine tells, who die hav- 
ing still the desire of dancing in their hearts — the impulse 
of it in their feet . . . and dance their spirits will, with 
the belated wayfarers in lonely roads . . . and the dance 
is still in MY &et. Nan, and the impulse to make Basil 
love me still in my heart . . . just that is all I want. 
And then, sooner or later, probably sooner, I should find 
out he is no better, probably not so good as many another 
man, and I should feel with Chevalier that ‘ There wasn’t a 
man in all the world, that I’d swop with my dear old Jem.' ” 

‘‘ Poor Jem !” said Nan, passionately. 

‘ ‘ Poor Easter, you mean. He managed badly ; he 
hurried me, and I was not in any hurry ... though do 
you know I actually kissed him once without his ever 
asking, because I wanted to save myself from Basil? 
For Jem was my fate all along, and I knew it. Only 


202 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


marriage should be the end of courtship, not the begin- 
ning — it is like sitting down to an everyday dull banquet, 
in love the nougd,t should come before meat !” 

‘ ‘ He did not hold a bludgeon to your head at the 
altar, I suppose?” said Nan, who had reason to vividly 
remember Easter’s walking out one morning, and some- 
how forgetting to return. 

“No, father’s temper was the bludgeon, and dulness the 
force that applied it. If — if Basil had come back. ...” 

'‘'’Easter cried Nan, entreatingly. 

“ Only he didn’t,” said Easter, whose recklessness in- 
creased momentarily. “It seems to have been all ‘ ifs’ 
with Basil — for instance, if Hugon had given him my let- 
ters, everything might have been different.” 

“And you would be a miserable woman now,” said 
Nan, who loved Basil, but knew his faults. 

“Very likely — but it would have been love — love! 
He would be a demon-lover, Nan, and bite your very 
heart in two !” 

Nan shrank away from her sister, and put both hands 
to her ears, but Easter pulled them down. 

“Oh ! Nan,” she said, “I mean no harm. I do not 
love Basil, but I want Basil to love me. When his heart 
is quite full of love for me, then mine will be empty, for 
at the bottom of it, I believe I love Jem — no one could 
know Jem as well as I do without loving him ; perhaps 
it’s because I’m sure of him, that I’m so careless. . . . 
I would not dare to venture into so much mischief, if I 
had not got Jem to get me out of it — but he must let me 
have my fling. I’m not very old yet — not nineteen. And 
if I could just hear Basil say, ‘I love you,’ I could be 
happ)r — I shouldn’t want any more. Something here,” 
she laid her hand on her heart, ‘ ‘ would be appeased — it 
won’t ever be quiet till then . . . and I’d be a real Lady 
Bountiful, and study the Family Tree, and all the old 
books, and fossils, and things that Jem likes, ever after. 
And he is very happy, much happier with me and all my 
faults than he ever would have been with anybody else. 
Lady Biddy, say, or Hugon ! Now, don’t make faces, 
child — ^but come in and see Hugon — there’s just time be- 
fore luncheon, and see if you can get any sense out of 
her! /can’t.” 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


203 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

“All the bodies of the universe are allied by sympathies or natural 
antipathies.” — Agrippa di Nettesheim. 

Have you ever kneeled down to look in a dog’s eyes, 
when first he comes, a stranger, to your house ? Wist- 
ful, earnest, they will search yours, probing your very 
soul to see what you really are, what your meaning to- 
wards him is, and kneel there as long as you will, that 
vigilant question will not relax, and only by his after- 
conduct will you be able to tell if you have answered 
to his enquiry satisfactorily, though, if you pass with 
honours, you may safely be trusted in every relation of 
life. 

Hugon met some such look from Nan as she turned 
her fierce gaze upon the child, and gradually it wavered 
before those earnest eyes, so full of pity, of comprehen- 
sion, and of love. 

“Poor soul,’’ said Nan, putting her arms round the 
frail figure, “you have been very ill, but you will be 
better soon,’’ and she kissed her gently on the cheek. 

The warm human touch for the moment pierced the 
woman’s despair, she looked up at the child, then pointed 
to the clothes scattered all round her on the floor. 

“I tried to put them on,” she said, “to run away, 
only I’m too weak. They all slipped through my fingers, 
but I shall get off all the same. The old ladies won’t 
take me back, but there is one way out of every diffi- 
culty” — she stopped abruptly, and a sense of the wrong 
she was doing this young soul silenced her. 

“You are only a bit of a child,” she said, “and you 
and I never quite hit it — ^good and bad people seldom 
do.” 

\ “You are not bad,” said Nan, stoutly. 

^ “I am not a good woman,” said Hugon. “I can’t 
see the one path ruled straight up to Heaven, and the 
other ruled straight down to hell. There are so many 
roundabout ways, trending up and down, and sometimes 


204 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


the path that seemed to lead upwards leads you quite the 
other way. It is like our virtues that are mostly re- 
strained vices — even as our vices are virtues gone mad 
from repression — but I am forgetting again that you are 
— \ only a child.” 

“Yes, but I understand,” said Nan, earnestly. She 
knew that Jem was at the bottom of the trouble, though 
he was in no way to blame for it, and she could follow 
the working of Hugon’s mind easily, and honoured the 
instinct that made flight appear Hugon’s one chance of 
salvation. There came an interruption in shape of a 
knocking, and the sound of Jem’s cheery voice on the 
other side of the door. 

“ Nan,” he called out, “you are in there, I know, and 
you’ve got to dress Hugon, and make her come down — 
I’ll carry her — and Mr. Denison says if she don’t, he’ll 
fetch her, bed and all — so hurry up ! Now, Hugon, I 
hope you are listening, because both he and I are in 
earnest.” And then he laughed, and went whistling 
away. 

For awhile Hugon sat without moving, then, “Help 
me, Nan,” she said. 

When Jem came back half an hour later, following 
with all the coolness of a married man close on his knock, 
he just strode over to Hugon, picked her up like a baby, 
then in the middle of the room stopped still to look 
down at the wan face pillowed on his shoulder. 

“ Poor little girl,” he said, thinking remorsefully of 
how he had grudged Easter’s time to her, and his many 
grumblings, ‘ ‘ poor, poor little woman !’ ’ 

He who had so much — Easter — everything — ^had 
grudged this poor waif a few days’ shelter beneath his 
roof, and at the thought his face softened with that ten- 
derness which only strong men can know or feel. 

And she looked up at him, alas ! as a flower stretches 
towards the sun, and if God had taken her that minute, 
it would have been well, for she would have gone out 
into the darkness warmed through and through by a love 
wrought to its highest manifestation of good, and having 
fought the brave fight, and done Jem no harm, would 
have been reverently remembered by him all his life 
through. • 


A MAN OF TODA\. 


205 


But in place of Death was Life — greedy, entreating, 
crying out for what was not, nor ever could be, its own, 
and Nan was the only one of them all who compre- 
hended, or saw anything. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

“Sorrow may endure for a night, but joy coraeth in the morning.” 

I 

After the night, morning ; from the stress and fury 
of a storm-beaten darkness, with its keening wail, its 
moan of drowning mariners upon the sea-shore, lo ! to 
the azure, and glory, and rain-washed breezes of the 
dawn, ay, and that exceeding joy which, once promised 
alike to saint and sinner, has never failed us through all 
the ages since the promise was first given. 

And even as Nature is in big, so is human nature in 
little, and we may mourn and suffer as we will through 
our dark hours, but the eternal freshness of hope, the 
pure love of life will assert itself at the first break of day 
in our hearts, and we are up and away, longing to take 
our share, to play our little part in that vast arena, where 
there is room and to spare for one and all of us to be 
happy, as God intended all his human families should be. 

And Jem, lulled in the usual security of the unawak- 
ened married man, and seeing Easter brighter than she 
had for a long while been, did not always insist on accom- 
panying her when she ordered out that dog cart which 
seemed to afford her so much pleasure, and, attended by 
a groom only, sent Rufus flying over the miles that lay 
between Penroses and the Shaw. 

There must have been wild blood surely in Easter’s 
veins, so intense was the longing occasionally upon her 
to run away from the elegant order of her home, and dis- 

E ort herself like a wanderer on the world’s face, and she 
ad not left school so long but that to her liberty was 
sweet, and even as she loathed the barouche and grey 
horses in which she and Jem returned duty calls on dull 

18 


2o6 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


neighbours, did she love these harum scarum drives, and 
the feeling of independence that they always brought her. 

Maria was not just then at home, as the two last babies 
had been indisposed, and on being removed to the sea- 
side, with most of the shavers, had promptly developed 
measles, so that there was a sort of quarantine between 
the elder and the younger portion of the family, and 
Easter fell so easily into her old place that sometimes she 
tricked herself into believing that she had never run 
away to be married, or indeed got married at all ! 

These cheerful voices, that noisy schoolroom, filled a 
want in her heart she had not hitherto acknowledged, 
but she had come to know that there is no loneliness like 
that of a married girl who has been one of an overflowingly 
large family, and sometimes she did not want to go back 
to the Shaw at all, and often wished that no wedding ring 
had ever marked her finger. 

For wherever she moved, Basil moved also, and she 
seemed to see him in every nook and corner of the 
garden, where she had so often seen, and regarded him 
not. Now^ an herb, or flower, or tree, would flash some 
memory upon her of how he had looked, of what he had 
said, when she had not seemed to listen, and beneath the 
trees in the orchard she would stand still with beating 
heart, listening so intently that at last she could almost 
feel his footsteps coming towards her, though no blade 
of grass bent beneath them, and no whisper of the wind 
uttered her name. Had he loved her then? Did he 
love her now ? — ever wish that, in spite of Daddy Gard- 
ner he had taken her in his arms that moonlight night, 
whether she would or no, and kissed her ? 

He was Basil, and all was said. Just as he had once 
chosen to withhold himself from her, so in Town he had 
chosen to reveal himself, making other men but poor 
creatures beside him, and indeed it had been characteris- 
tically remarked that though men often boasted of being- 
taken for him, no one was ever known to mistake Basil 
Strokoff for any other man whatsoever. 

Tom Denison was not communicative to his daughter 
on the subject of the young Russian, what had been done 
was a matter of business between the two as men, and he 
did not wish it alluded to. It did not occur to him that 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


207 


Nan, who was growing up with great rapidity under her 
experiences, was the originator of this conspiracy of 
silence, and that Dinkie and the Snapper had several 
times choked off the most innocent remarks, because they 
happened to include the name of Basil. What reasons 
Nan had given, or how she contrived to muzzle those 
slippery tongues, it would be hard to say, but it is a fact 
that a whole fortnight elapsed before Easter found out 
how, but for merest chance, she and Basil must have met 
more than once lately, and it came about by accident, as 
such things mostly do. She was roaming through Pen- 
roses one day when she happened to enter the Blue-room, 
which a housemaid was just then putting straight, and 
she asked in surprise who had occupied it. 

“ Prince Strokoff, ma’am,” said the girl, astonished at 
Mrs. Burghersh’s ignorance. 

A wave of wrath swept over Easter, wiping out that 
intimate personal feeling of his near presence that had 
dizzied her. How dared they . . . and what were they 
afraid of— of him or of her ? And what was he afraid of, 
to acquiesce in this insolent conspiracy of deceit ? 

There were, as Dinkie vulgarly put it, ‘ ructions’ ’ in 
the schoolroom shortly afterwards, and Nan’s sensations 
were the usual ones of the person who intermeddleth 
with a fool and his folly — only to confirm that fool in the 
same. 

Henceforth Easter asked no questions, and came more 
seldom, but a restless fever possessed and tormented her, 
and she began to have a feeling that Basil had turned into 
a shadow that for ever mocked and evaded her. She 
seemed to see him fleeing out of one door as she entered 
by another — to hear the sound of his steps echoing in 
Penroses the moment she had passed beyond actual ear- 
shot of them, and she anxiously searched the innocent 
pink and white faces of her brethren for a knowledge of 
this guilty passion of hers, the danger of which a mere 
child like Nan had been able to discover. 

Meanwhile, Jem was making Hugon happy, and prob- 
ably no man is insensible to the charm of conferring in- 
tense happiness on someone else, the more especially if 
that someone has known little or no pleasure in her life, 
and Jem enjoyed showing her the pictures, the prints, the 


2o8 


MAN OF TO-DAY. 


many treasures of an old house that had been enriched by 
the taste of generations of cultured people, not knowing 
that Hugon’s supreme content was in him — and not in 
those things upon which he discoursed to her. 

She could bear even to hear him talk of Easter, since 
the voice was his. She could bear anything so long as 
she had so large a share of his time — his company, and 
resolutely she put the future aside, and, since every dog 
has his day, this day being hers — she, as the dog, enjoyed 
it to the uttermost. 

And it is a subtle distinction, but a true one, that a 
woman often finds an excuse for her unlawful love of a 
man inUhe fact that his wife does not love him too much, 
or indeed at all. And Hugon knew that the hour had 
struck when any true friend of Easter’s would have seized 
her with a strong hand, and in very despite of herself, 
dragged her back from the precipice on which she stood, 
and the one person who could have opened Jem’s eyes 
— who could urgently have cried to him, ‘ ‘ Take her 
away — take her out of herself— remove her from every- 
thing that can remind her of Basil, every chance of see- 
ing him,” was silent, and in this crowning temptation of 
her life — fell. 

None had interposed to save her in her darkest hour — 
no angel from Heaven — no voice from earth had come to 
stay her hand in its gloomy deed, that yet was the su- 
preme rejection by the spiritual self of its baser one, and 
was she the keeper of Easter’s soul, or was that wanton 
soul even worth the keeping? Jealous love may in time 
become hurtful as envy, that ” daughter of pride,” ” the 
author of murder and revenge — the beginner of secret 
sedition . . . the filthy slime of the soul. A venom, a 
poison — a quicksilver” . . . and had not some such 
quicksilver run in Hugon’s veins ever since that moment 
of unreason, in which she had barely restrained her- 
self from tearing Easter as an interloper out of Jem’s 
arms? 

“Why don’t you go up to Town for the season?” 
said Hugon one day, when they sat together in the 
White Pavilion. 

”0, you know— uncle is dying, and Jem’s his 
heir, he may have to go off to Scotland at any moment, 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


209 


and how am I to frivol around, in the midst of Jem’s re- 
lations, too, in black ?’ ’ 

“You always wear black ?’’ 

“Yes, but not weepers. And Jem’s quite happy,’’ 
added Easter, “and when a man’s happy he won’t stir. 
He only travels when he’s wretched.’’ 

travels must begin soon,’’ said Hugon, grimly 
conscious that however evil her desires, the Devil showed 
no present signs of enabling her to gratify them. 

Easter looked concerned. Formerly, she had not 
pitied Hugon very greatly, being herself serene, with 
the selfish serenity of perfect health. It is when we are 
nervous, trembling to each suggestion of pity, of kind- 
ness, that we feel for others, because we feel for them 
through ourselves, but when we are well and happy, our 
nerves are of steel, and our sympathies are calloused 
through and through. 

We carry this selfishness into our every relation of life. 
We hear of the death of a person, and we say, “ O ! he 
is dead ! he was so good to me,'' and we mourn, not for 
him who is dead, not for his awful debt paid, and he 
nothing, but of what he was to us, because he was good 
to us, because in a word he has appealed to our self-love, 
and not in vain. 

“You wouldn’t care to go to Penroses?’’ said Easter, 
rather absently, “for I think the Ancient Mariner is ac- 
tually meditating departure. She’s got an old fossil of a 
brother who keeps on bullying her to keep house for 
him.’’ 

Hugon’ s face changed. 

To be at Penroses . . . to be near Jem. . . . Heaven 
opened before her eyes, and she closed them that Easter 
might not see their expression. 

“I’ll talk to father about it,’’ said Easter, and smiled. 
It seemed so funny for any one to be so fond of— Jem. 
And she had always pitied any one the shape of whose 
nose, or the colour of whose complexion forbade senti- 
ment — though their owner’s soul might be full of it, and 
the very way Hugon looked at Jem in company was self- 
betrayal, her blood ran so clearly at summer warmth 
when he drew nigh, while the very way she pronounced 
his name was an open declaration of love — though she 
o 18* 


210 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


did not know it. Life to Hugon just then was like the 
Norway summer, when the sun sends night and day his 
vivifying and glorious beams over the frozen ice- world, 
but after that long bright day comes the endless dark 
arctic night, no gleam of light, no thrill of warmth . . . 
and that long night was rapidly approaching to Hugon 
now, whose only sun was Love. 

“Hugon,” Easter said, thoughtfully, “if your eye- 
brows had curled more fiercely, your hair been more en- 
ergetic, and your ears twitched, you would be ever so 
much more interesting — and wicked. You’ll never be 
more than half-and-half to your dying day.” 

“Just so,” said Hugon ; “you mean that in respecta- 
bility I have lost the power to respond to those primitive 
passions that sway the lawless, and the law-breakers 
equally, but you’re wrong. At heart I’m a savage, but 
I should have made a decent man — as men go.” 

“ I never could understand your quarrel with Fate for 
making you a woman. Pm quite satisfied.” 

“A woman is cursed with imagination,” said Hugon, 

‘ ‘ a man has none. Conduct with him takes the place of 
the ideal.” 

“They told me I should find you here,” said Daddy 
Gardner’s voice in the doorway, and Easter hailed his 
long nose with joy, and reproached him with having 
shamefully neglected her. 

“You’re such a swell now,” said Daddy, reproach- 
fully, when he had deposited himself in a chair, and 
gratefully sniffed up the surrounding scents. “Jolly old 
place, ain’t it?” he added, looking round, “but some- 
how I always expect to find the Shaw gone when I come 
to call ! I don’t believe in building under cliffs, and on 
the edges of precipices, or below reservoirs ; Nature first 
warns you, then slaps your face, and mostly ends by 
wiping you off the face of the earth.” 

“Thank you. Daddy, and if that’s all you’ve come to 
say, you’d better have stopped at home. And another 
time you come to see me, just have your coat brushed, 
and get your hair cut. ’ ’ 

Daddy looked squashed. 

“ Now you know, Mrs. Burghersh,” he said, “there’s 
a fearful amount of wear and tear entailed on always com- 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


2II 


mg up to the scratch — let everything slide, and you’ll 
add years to your life, while wrinkles on your azure brow 
will be unknown !” 

Hugon slipped away. She had seen Jem coming. 
Daddy looked after her, and unconsciously made a face 
the reverse of flattering. 

“Daddy,” said Easter, smiling, “you don’t like 
women, and that’ s a fact. ” 

“Well, they ain’t interesting in the mass, shopping, 
bargaining, chattering,” said Daddy, calmly. “The 
multitude of women affects man with a contempt for the 
one, while the one alone disposes him to think favoura- 
bly of the masses. But I know I’m talking awful rot,” 
said Daddy, cheerfully. ‘ ‘ So Strokofif has been down 
here lately,” he added, colouring uneasily. 

“Where — at Fitzwalters ?” 

The question leaped out like a sword from a scabbard 
when its owner’s life is threatened. 

“ I don’t know the Fitzwalters lot — or want to either. 
I heard he was at Penroses.” 

“ Daddy,” cried Easter, furious at his tone, “are you 
a Pharisee ? Now all my sympathies are with those others 
— the publicans and sinners. ‘ God be merciful to me, a 
sinner !’ There’s a man for you ! Oh, I could forgive a 
human vice or two in a man or woman, a passionate 
crime, even, miles before the thousand pitiful meannesses 
of the so-called religious man or woman ! You say of a 
person, he did such-and-such a thing, wholly bad — Yes, 
but did he never do anything else — never do anything 
good or unselfish in his life? You must take the good 
and the bad deeds right through, strike the balance, and 
there is the man fit for heaven or hell.” 

‘ ‘ And Strokoff strikes the balance in favour of hell, ’ ’ 
said Daddy, grimly, who knew what the pursuit of a man 
who does not love a woman enough to be magnanimous 
means. 

Easter coloured, but she had begun to think lately, and 
now she chose to talk. 

“Do you know,” she said, after a little pause, “that 
the only merciful judges on earth of women are good 
women and good men? The good women can’t enter 
into the temptations that beset the others, and they kiss 


212 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


the sinner on the mouth because they do not understand, 
or perhaps they dimly realise that woman is the scape- 
goat of man for all time ’ ’ 

“O! come, Mrs. Burghersh,” said Daddy, with a 
flush on his ugly, kind face, “you don’t look anything 
of that sort at all, I assure you— fancy if Burghersh heard 
you ’ ’ 

“Daddy,” said Easter, leaning her brilliant, transpar- 
ent face on one little hand, and looking at him earnestly, 
“ have you ever felt, when you’ve got everything into a 
tangle, that it would be nice to die — -just to get out of it ?’ ’ 

“No,” said Daddy, stoutly, “ I can’t saj^ I ever have. 
Such as life is, one doesn’t want to lose it. One con- 
stantly hears people talking boldly and lightly of taking 
their lives if such-and-such things should happen. But 
one day a man’s heart beats slower, he goes to a doctor, 
who looks grave, and a cold chill passes over the patient 
that he was far from feeling when he contemplated taking 
his last journey of his own accord. No man likes inter- 
ference, even from God, and if his life is really threat- 
ened, he fights doggedly for it to the end — as you would 
fight if you had occasion,” he added, with a confidence 
he was far from feeling, for with a painful heart sinking, 
he realised how terribly frail Easter looked — and how un- 
happy. 

“Let’s go and look for Burghersh,” he said, getting 
up to hide his face, and noting how on her way to the 
open windows Easter paused absently, plucked a flower — 
smiled at it, then tried to replace it on its stalk — came 
back to herself with an effort, and joined him. 

Hugon was saying, “Jem, shall I give you an alle- 
gory? A soul sped heavenwards, heavy with a last 
earthly wish. ‘ Oh God !’ it cried, ‘ give me this one 
thing, the care of the one earthly soul I love. Let me 
go back and comfort her — even if she know me not, let 
me be there to guard her.’ The prayer was granted. 
Soon he returned weeping. He had found her not sor- 
rowing, but glad, with another man beside her — another 
man whose image had been deep down in her heart long 
before he thought he saw his own in it — he had but over- 
laid it for a time, and was already forgotten. ’ ’ 

“ Yes,” said Jem, puzzled. Pie knew that he was not 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


213 


clever in the sense that Hugon was, and sometimes her 
sayings baffled him. This one did especially, he couldn’t 
see any point in it. 

Suddenly repenting of her fierceness, she looked up at 
the man’s strong figure, the fair brown head, and friendly, 
tanned face, and was glad that he did not understand — 
had he done so he would not be so worthy of her love. 

“Isn’t it lovely up here?’’ he said, cheerily, “the 
finest house on earth wouldn’t give me half the pleasure 
this prospect does. One may have too many pictures, 
too many beautiful things around, and one longs to get 
away from them all, and look clean out from a height 
like this, with nothing whatever to come between God 
and you.’’ 

His voice was reverent, he had bared his head, and if 
ever a man of clean heart and life looked fearlessly out 
upon the future, with the stamp of health and perfect 
happiness and content on his brow, that man then was 
Jem Burgh ersh. 

‘ ‘ Here’ s my sweetheart, ’ ’ he said, as cheerful approach- 
ing voices struck on his ear, ‘ ‘ the one beautiful thing in 
the world to me that is not too much, and I can do 
nothing — nothing on earth but try and deserve her.’’ 

But Hugon had disappeared down one of those side 
alleys that began with so much importance, and mostly 
ended nowhere, at the Hangingshaw. And in her soul 
she was calling him, her adored Jem — a fool. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

** Adieu the lily and the rose, 

The primrose fair to see ; 

Adieu, my lady and only joy. 

For I may not stay with thee.” 

Tom was willing, but Maria was coy about Hugon’ s 
coming to Penroses, for she could not be home for 
another three weeks at least, and she did not like to 
think of so ancient a landmark as the Mariner being re- 


214 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


moved in her absence. The latter had once beeii de^ 
scribed by Dinkie as a person “who put up her lip and 
baa’d at you,” but such as she was she had become an 
awkward but indispensable piece of furniture at Penroses 
that everybody, more or less, barked his shins over (es- 
pecially Tom), and no one wanted to lose her. 

Whereupon Jem tried strategy, and wrote to mother- 
in-law— (I always thought it the only redeeming point in 
a certain bad man’s character, that he forged his mother- 
in-law’s name) — and told her he wanted Easter all to 
himself for a bit, and the sooner Hugon got ranged, the 
better he would be pleased — which was a man’s way of 
showing gratitude for the inestimable gift of a woman’s 
soul — which he did not happen just then to want. 

Maria rose nobly to the occasion, and so it happened 
that one fine morning, Jem, looking after a retreating 
dog-cart, said “ Thank God !’’ so audibly that the white- 
faced wretch inside heard him, and Easter called him a 
brute. 

“Well, when you only want one woman in the world, 
where’s the good of others fooling round?’’ he said, 
quite unabashed, as he snatched her up and carried her 
into the house, where he petted, amused, and distracted 
her from her thoughts, till by bed-time she remembered 
that she had forgotten all day to carry Basil on those 
nerves that she confidently supposed to be her heart. 

One night, as, fragile and almost as unsubstantial as a 
moonbeam, she lay in Jem’s strong arms after dinner, 
resting quite still, and looking thoughtfully at him at 
intervals, till like a tired and contented child at last she 
fell asleep, I think her eyes cleared, and she saw things 
in their true proportions, saw all the sin of her attitude to 
Basil and his to her, and from that moment the fever 
abated, and she became sane. 

I suppose that to almost every man it has come at 
least once in his life to love a woman, to suppose himself 
loved by her, and to wake up one fine morning and find 
the woman — gone. 

She is there in the flesh, the mocking, laughing thing 
that has borrowed new charms through her very indif- 
ference, but the real essence of her, the something that 
constituted love^ and made him a hero to her, and her- 


A MAN OF TODAY. 215 

self a goddess to him, has fled away for ever, and will 
not return. 

Sometimes the man’s cruelty, frequently his neglect, 
or oftener still some base quality in himself with which 
the woman’s nobler nature declines to fuse, has brought 
about the catastrophe — but probably he never really 
knows himself, he is sure but of one thing, that the inner 
heart of her has escaped him, and only the husk of the 
treasure remains in his grasp. 

To Jem Burghersh no such awakening had come, for 
the simple reason that he had been content to marry 
Easter, knowing she did not love him — though, on the 
other hand, he was quite sure that she did not love any- 
one else. Had she not in everything sought his help, 
even while she flouted him ? And no matter what sorties 
she might make, of what extravagances she might be 
guilty, she was sure of always having him to come back 
to when tired — and, however naughty she might be, to 
be comforted. And as one unconsciously takes in every 
detail of a landscape of which one is not at the time 
thinking, only to vividly remember them afterwards, so 
a thousand little traits of character, of new and lovable 
qualities that had passed unnoticed hitherto in Jem, 
revealed themselves, and every day she came to know 
him better, to contrast him more favorably with those 
men she had met in town, who had at first approached 
her with that insolence which so plainly says, “ If I had 
the time, ’ ’ and who so soon substituted, ‘ ‘ If only I had 
the opportunity !” 

When Easter told Jem one day that he put her in 
mind of the Bible — the New Testament, be it clearly 
understood, not the Old — he thought her irreverent, but 
she really meant it, and, insensibly influenced by that 
strong, steadfast nature, became attuned to better things, 
and reverted to her neglected needlework, and other sane 
and simple pleasures that she had forgotten. 

And when you know that the slightest thing you do, 
the very way you pour out a cup of tea, or even say 
something silly, is inestimably dear and right to a man, 
it makes you feel comfortable, and well disposed towards 
that person, and in those days, though Easter did not 
know it, she was remarkably near to falling in love with 


216 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


her own husband, and might have been entirely happy, 
but that it is ever the future and the past that hold our 
jewels — not the present. 

Dinkie, who came over as often as possible for a good 
tuck-out, openly apostrophised them as the “Spoons,” 
and stuck daggers in Hugon’s heart afterwards by ac- 
counts of their wedded raptures. And the warm spring 
days (love has no greater friend or foe than the weather) 
and all the freshness of a worM new-made over again, 
raised Easter’s spirits, and drew her out with Jem to ex- 
plore that kingdom, whose wooded heights and dewy 
glades were so dear to him, and one day as they sat with 
their feet in hyacinths and their backs to a silver-barked 
beech, he spoke to her for the first time of his mother. 

She had died young. So much Easter had known by 
the tablet under a church window upon which was duly 
inscribed the fact that Margot had departed this life some 
twenty years ago, at the mature age of twenty-three. 

Jem’s father had never looked at that date without a 
sense of the extreme indiscretion of Providence in med- 
dling with affairs that went so well, for was he not cor- 
recting, moulding, and improving his wife into the shape 
and pattern he had decided on, when death took the im- 
proving business out of his hands, and brought her, but 
half-finished, before her Maker ? 

Margot had loved dogs and horses, laughter and fresh 
air, and believed that four walls were built for shelter — 
not to live in, and giggle in, and practise those ladylike 
arts for which the world was never one whit the richer, 
or the happier. There must have been a streak of gipsy 
blood in her veins, so fond was she of movement, and 
wandering at the beck and call of her own wayward will, 
so open to all the sweet influences of nature, so passion- 
ately alive to its beauties and surprises ; and if she felt 
too keen a joy in the mere sense of living, did she not 
suffer with equal sharpness when the conditions under 
which she lived became unbearable ? A handsome face, 
a cold but charming manner, the reserve of character that 
causes weakness to pass for strength, and selfishness for 
force of will, had captivated her heart before she knew 
what men were ; and with the recklessness of a lavishly 
generous nature, that, in giving, never looks to the value 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


217 


of the equivalent received, Margot Burghersh had thrown 
down her life’s treasure royally, only to find out, too late, 
what a poor simulacrum of a heart she had received in 
exchange. 

How should he cut and pare, and stint the noble nature 
to his own narrow needs ? He never doubted but that 
he could do so ; and, indeed, he thought he was getting 
on very well indeed, and making a quiet, domesticated 
animal of her, when — though she could not escape from 
his house, and his company in the flesh — her spirit fled 
out through the narrow gate of death— free. But had it 
really escaped ? Did not the generous spirit pass rather 
into her child, howsoever he sought to crush and cap- 
ture it ? 

From his cradle Jem had been nature’s child, escaping 
from his cot to wander barefoot in the moonbeams, or to 
dance in the shadows — knowing every flower and tree in 
the place, happy and inconsequent as any forest creature 
rejoicing in its own fearless life, and whose habits he so 
intimately knew and imitated, growing up without the 
faintest resemblance to the elegant, cold-mannered gen- 
tleman who, as years went by, withdrew himself almost 
wholly into those learned pursuits which often serve as a 
cloak to hide a man’s poverty, and wretchedness of mind 
and heart. 

And at last, while his son was abroad, the father’s poor 
apology for a heart had ceased to beat, and Jem after 
years of travel had come home to his inheritance — and 
Easter. 

“ Here she is — poor little soul,” he said, drawing from 
his breast pocket a faded daguerreotype enclosed in an 
old-fashioned locket, “I’m afraid she didn’t have a good 
time.” He paused, “I found a bundle of letters from 
her to my father ’ ’ 

Easter slipped her little hand into her husband’s, 
something in his voice told her tears were in his eyes, 
and somehow Jem, the much-envied master of the 
Hangingshaw, was only a little boy to her then, who 
had never known that mother’s love and care for which 
all the treasures on earth will not recompense any poor 
human soul. 

“Jem,” she said, softly, “I’ll try and make it up to 
K 19 


2I8 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


you,” and they kissed each other like two children, and 
sat for a long while leaning their heads together, and 
talking about her. The memory of that hour in the 
quiet glade never left Jem’s memory, and in after times 
came back to Easter so vividly that she could hear over 
again the thrush’s song that “sang their pauses out,” 
remember how the woodland life went on unchecked by 
their presence, where the green fell palest on the elm 
boughs, and more vividly on the hawthorns, could see 
the speckled leaves of the arum thrusting themselves 
through the earth’s mosaic, taste the sharp sourness of 
the sorrel leaf, and feel the warmth of the south wind as 
it brought a thousand vernal scents and sounds to her 
senses, soothing them as only Nature’s grand organ 
notes can. 

Jem grudged every minute, every moment even, as it 
passed. At any hour the summons to his uncle might 
come, and he must depart, and he had got his joy and he 
wanted to keep it — and it would be inhuman if at this, the 
most critical period of their lives, and his first real court- 
ship of his wife, he were to be snatched from her by Fate, 
which is but a malevolent name for Providence. And 
Providence played Jem one of its usual unhandsome 
tricks, and a week after Hugon’s departure summoned 
him by telegram to see a very old man’s painful disso- 
lution, when all he wanted was time in which to make a 
young love thrive. 

“ I won’t go,” he cried, throwing down the piece of 
paper, and looking thoroughly unmanned. “I’m no 
good — it’s the only thing you can't help a man to do — 
to die — and you mustn’ t come, dear, it would undo every 
bit of good the quiet lately has done you.” 

Easter stood quite still, with a curious feeling of 
approaching loss, of friendlessness, different altogether 
to any feeling she had ever known for Basil, creeping 
coldly round her heart, too timid was it, too vague for 
love, and yet was it only the grief with which one sees 
depart a bon camarade whose trusted and lovable qualities 
have endeared him to you all along the road ? 

She went up to him where he stood distracted, and 
bowed her head till lightly it touched his breast. His 
arms went round her, and she never forgot their strength. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


219 


and the utter sense of safety they gave her impressed 
themselves physically upon her, so that in time to come, 
with many another true woman, she would cry out, 
passionately, 

“ O ! that it were possible after long grief and pain, 

To feel the arms of my true love round me once again.” 

The sooner you go, the sooner you will come back,” 
said Easter, pulling herself together ; “if the poor old 
man dies, and — and there will be the funeral, you need 
only be gone a week.” 

Jem looked at her wistfully as he smoothed the hair 
back from her forehead with one hand, and framed her 
face with the other. 

” Shall I come with you, dear?” she said. 

He thought of the interminable journey, the barrack- 
like remote castle, without a mistress, of the old Scotch 
servants who had no idea of comfort, or waiting on a 
woman, and he dared not take her into such gloomy sur- 
roundings, and lest she should urge the point, forbade it. 

“You must go to Penroses,” he said, “it would drive 
you melancholy-mad here. I might drop you there on 
my way,” he added, with all a man’s ignorance of female 
packing-up, but this was impossible, and so it happened 
that within an hour Jem had set out alone, and she never 
forgot how he came back more than once to take her face 
in his kind hands, and search it for the love that surely, 
surely was beginning to give him answer there, and when 
at last, too heavy-hearted for speech he tore himself away, 
Easter sat down on the oak settle inside the hall, and 
oblivious of the men-servants — wept. 

Presently she went into Jem’s study, so full of mascu- 
line litter, and picking up his glove pressed it to her wet 
cheek, then paused before a portrait of him in the draw- 
ing-room to think how resolute a man he looked in it, 
when with her he was so pliable — so easy to manage . . . 
it is usually the woman he does not love, and not the one 
he does, to whom a man shows in the full strength and 
beauty of his mind and character. 


220 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

But ever since I heedlessly did lave 
In thy deceitful stream, a panting glow 
Grew strong within me ; wherefore serve me so 
And call it love ! Alas, ’twas cruelty.” 

There were rejoicings at Penroses when Easter walked 
in, just in time for early dinner, and Tom, seeing her in 
her old place, gave that little click of the teeth which 
always denoted in him unusual satisfaction. Splendid 
teeth they were, almost redeeming a rather hard mouth 
— your really successful man in the matter of pounds, 
shillings, and pence seldom has a beautiful mouth and 
chin. And a true father, though he may grumble at his 
overflowing brood, does not wish to see one seat empty, 
one curly head absent, and never quite forgives the son- 
in-law who has stolen one bright face from his board. 
Tom had now almost forgiven Easter for taking French 
leave of him last year, and when he bent his head to say 
grace, looking down at the hands (albeit those of a gen- 
tleman) that were a mute protest to the do-nothingness of 
his family, some of the old look on his face when ‘ ‘ he 
owed not any man” came back, and sunshine was the 
order of the day. 

Maria’s place and several high chairs were empty, it is 
true, but it is a melancholy fact that a house conjointly 
ruled by two persons not always of one mind, goes much 
more comfortably with one or other of its heads absent, 
and Easter found a cheeriness in the atmosphere alto- 
gether foreign to it when absent keys, and Tom’s fulmi- 
nations thereon, formed the sauce to every family joint. 

The outgoing Ancient Mariner beamed on her favourite 
pupil through the tears that with her betokened pleasure., 
sitting as far as possible from the incoming Mrs. Satan 
who had arrived, as Dinkie declared, with a bag-full of 
brand new tricks, and more amazingly sinful than ever. 
The only one silent in all that cheerful company, Hugon 
had felt the coldness of the air when she approached 
Easter, and had not trusted her voice to enquire for Jem 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


221 


— Jem, for a sight of whom she had sickened a whole 
week. 

Somehow Hugon fell out of the procession presently 
formed round the grounds, including Bunkulorum, who 
forebore to pepper any of them with Shakesperian pop- 
guns, and to Nan’s huge satisfaction, Jem’s name re- 
mained well to the fore, and whether as kind, or absurd, 
or decidedly thinner^ occupied the very first place in 
Easter’s conversation from lawn to stables, and round 
again by the piggeries, home. 

She was still full of her subject when (Nan having gone 
off to the schoolroom, Bunkulorum and the Snapper to 
the grammar school, and Dinkie to his much-loathed ’oss 
’air), she gravitated to the Green-room, which was usually 
the safest from intrusion in the house. 

The green jalousies were closed against the sunshine, 
the air was sweet with the breath of growing flowers, in 
the soft gloom she saw no one as she came quietly in, and 
shut the door behind her. 

A girl in a pink cotton gown . . . who had played a 
game of “ Touch-last” with him in a black one . . . who 
had wept before his eyes in a dusty tallet . . . was this 
the woman of the world, who had shown herself as clever 
at guarding her heart as he had been at hardening his, 
and by the flambeau-X\^X. of whose matchless colouring 
the town-bred beauties had shown like mere prentice 
freaks of Nature, all save Lala, whose colourlessness 
made her charm ? 

There are women freshly come to a new estate who 
write married all over themselves, in their faces, on their 
clothes, who even intone in their voices the announce- 
ment that they are the lawful property of some man, in- 
visible perhaps, but through them constantly asserting 
his existence. There are other women who belong to 
themselves alone, and are in a sense impersonal, so that 
you cannot tell from their appearance or conversation if 
they are married or single, and Easter was one of these 
latter. 

These first impressions passed through Basil’s brain in 
a flash, the next gave him a new Easter, who was inter- 
esting, as are the rarer sort of women, more for the 
things that she had not done, than for those that she had, 

19* 


222 


.A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


and whose loveliness as she now stood before him, 
reached that highest point of simplicity, distinction. 

He had the immeasurable advantage of seeing her first 
— the girl who had fevered him as he had fevered her, 
whom he had longed to see, and sternly fled from, whom 
he would not trust himself with since their broken friend- 
ship in Town, and of whose presence to-day at Penroses 
he was ignorant, or he had never entered its doors. 

He rose, and she started as he came forward, but where 
were the anticipated tremors, raptures, and fears of this 
passionately longed-for moment, now so unexpectedly 
sprung upon her ? 

A natural greeting rose to her lips, and as he took her 
hand, she caught herself thinking that the Mediterranean 
depths of his eyes were not so blue as usual, or half as 
true as some grey ones she knew of, and surely that 
waistcoat was not in his usual perfect taste . . . 

“We have missed each other very often,” she said, 
when they were seated opposite each other, and he saw 
that she was looking at him eagerly, alertly, no, not at 
him, but at the chair in which he was sitting, the same 
one Jem had occupied when he made himself into a ridic- 
ulous pin-cushion to please her. 

She smiled at the recollection — at something, as Basil 
saw, quite outside himself, and his personality, and a cer- 
tain anger came into his face as he looked at her. 

“ I have been very unfortunate,” he said, coldly, and 
Easter thought how cross he was, and how much less 
really good-looking than Jem. Her spirits rose at find- 
ing how little power he had over her, at discovering how 
much wrong one can do in imagination, yet keep per- 
fectly cool and untempted when face to face with the real- 
ity. Then she remembered how good he had been to 
her father, and said, — 

‘ ‘ Do you mind telling me if it is you who have saved 
the Chief and all of us (she forgot to say “them”) from 
ruin ?’ ’ 

“ No,” said Basil, with a haughtiness Easter had never 
seen in him before, ‘ ‘ I merely introduced him to some- 
one who could be of material assistance to him. He is 
not nearly so involved as he at first supposed,” and pro- 
ceeded to give her some details that she did not in the 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


223 


least understand, for if she wanted business, she should 
have it, he thought, savagely, a cold-blooded little devil 
—throwing him into a fever as she had done, and treat- 
ing him anyhow when at last they met. 

‘ ‘ And so, you see, what I have done is a mere nothing, 
after all,” he concluded, telling the lie valiantly, just as 
Nan peeped in, saw and heard the distant terms upon 
which the pair were, and thinking everything safe, beat a 
hasty retreat. 

He called after the child, with a sudden change of look 
and voice that gave him back all his old charm, but she 
did not hear him. Who has not seen that lightening of 
the whole face when a folded brow is relaxed, and the 
soul is there ? And though Basil had not quite forgiven 
Nan her untimely appearance in Town, love her he must 
and did always, and the tie that knit them together was 
not to be broken. 

Never a man with a more fastidious taste than this one, 
with the English face, the Russian heart, for he wanted 
the loveliness of one, the character of another, the soul 
of a third, and the fire and vim of a fourth all united in 
one and the same woman, though if ever he did com- 
bine them, he would discover that all these charms were 
merely negative wants. He had turned too many pages 
in the book of woman, finding a strong family likeness 
on every page, to expect anything new, and there is 
little curiosity among seasoned men in matters of love ; 
to them it is all so stale, and they never cease to wonder 
at, and pity the freshness of feeling that a woman brings 
to the dull old theme, whereas ambition, sport, peril, the 
game of chance, will always stir a man’s blood, and fall 
each moment into new and kaleidoscopic forms of charm. 

Basil had sprung up in search of Nan, but when he 
came back with, — 

” Is Burghersh here ?” in his mouth, he found himself 
alone, for, with a dexterity born of long practice, Easter 
had pushed back the jalousies, and, taking the window- 
sill, as it were, in her stride, had vanished. 


224 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 

“ Perverse mankind, whose wills, created free. 

Charge all their woes on absolute decree.” — H omer. 

Basil’s business with Tom Denison tarried. He was 
in his old quarters at “ The George,” and but that Na- 
ture’s clock stood at spring, not summer, they might all 
have rubbed their eyes and vowed they had but napped 
— only to find Penroses had been touched with a magi- 
cian’s wand during that forty winks, for Penroses in the 
month of May — a forward, not an east winderly May — 
was a something too entrancingly lovely for description, 
making even the Shaw, with its dells and glades, its 
terraces and moor, fade into a mere monotony of greens, 
and this though the Hangingshaw covered miles, while 
Tom Denison’s garden was no more than the heart of a 
country town, scooped out for his sovereign will and 
pleasure. 

Only whoever planted the borders of his covetous 
lawn had been a spendthrift, and kept one month only 
in his mind, planting the May- trees thickly, not forgetting 
laburnum, and lilac, and syringa, and had drawn across 
the wall that ran at right angles with the library a net- 
work of wistaria, that lovely wanton among garden 
flowers who bursts upon the world in such haste that 
she has ne’er a leaf with which to hide her perfumed 
loveliness ! And once Nature had given the signal, the 
colours raced each other, never stopping by night or 
day, so that when the pink May-tree was well alight, one 
but a little farther away caught up the fire in vivid rose 
colour, and so kindling and dwindling, turning aside to 
scatter, in palest gold, long ringlets of laburnum, to flush 
with reddish mauve the lilac plumes, and hold its breath 
as it passed the white, barely touching the heart of the 
syringa, but turning to glory the tan of the young 
beechen leaves, quivered at last like a beacon fire in the 
crimson double-may that lies hard by the old elm, on 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


22 $ 


the left-hand side of the gravel path. The garden flowers 
hid themselves, they were of no account in this prodigal 
feast of colour — only the lilies of the valley held their 
own, and Easter was kneeling by, and parting their 
green leaves, and thinking how much wiser they were 
than the wistaria whose translucent clusters had already 
begun in places to wither, when she looked up to see Basil 
beside her, ever^ whit as fresh as the morning herself. 

“ Isn’t it delicious?” she said, with a little sigh. “Be- 
cause, you know — it’s stolen.'^ 

He followed her thought, which was a little vague even 
to herself. She meant that every scrap of happiness we 
wrest from time and tide is filched, and therefore pre- 
cious. 

“If only it would last,” he said, from mere force of 
habit settling his cummerbund instead of a waistcoat, 
“but Life is made up of interruptions — one stops in the 
middle of a tragedy to listen to the muffln-man going 
down the street. And to think that I was never in a real 

f arden before,” taking off his hat, and looking round 
im with the most intense satisfaction, as he drew in a 
deep breath of lilac-scented air, ‘ ‘ and that there are poor 
devils riding in the Row this morning who fancy they are 
enjoying themselves !” 

“As you have done, and will do again,” said Easter, 
arranging her nosegay, or button-hole, or whatever it 
might be. There was this comfort, at any rate, that they 
talked to each other like human beings now, and this 
habit of being natural had grown upon them of late, for 
often what is impossible to us in December and March 
we say and feel with ease in balmy May. 

“/think the box-seat on a coach would be worth all 
these — things,” and her eyes swept the wide, vivid circle 
of loveliness — she had seen it so often !— disdainfully. 
“These lilies are too sweet, and when they decay — I’ve 
seen women who make me think of decayed lilies in your 
London — have not you?” she added, as she gave him 
some of the fresh ones, and stuck the others in the waist- 
belt of her white gown. 

On Mrs. Burghersh’s left hand w^ a garden-glove, 
in her whole air there was a youth, an irresponsibility that 
forbade the idea of her being married, and this struck 


226 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


Basil at the moment so forcibly, that he enquired how the 
Hangingshaw managed to get on without her ? 

“There is a housekeeper,” said Easter, throwing back 
her head, and laughing with the irrepressible delight of a 
child who is thoroughly enjoying itself. ‘ ‘ She thinks she’ s 
the real mistress of the Shaw, and that I’m a mere inter- 
loper, and I know it. She rustles as she walks — there’s 
a rich store-cupboard smell about her — port-wine, you 
know, and mince pies, and mulligatawny soup, and things 
of that sort, and when she speaks, you hear the jingle of 
countless keys, and there is one little dent in her cheek 
where I’m sure the butler has kissed her daily during 
the last thirty years !’ ’ 

Basil laughed. In some odd way he was a constant 
stimulant to women, putting them on their mettle, caus- 
ing them to display unexpected powers and graces, that 
ennobled them in their own eyes, and of course him in 
theirs. Now, it had never struck Easter before that she 
might be amusing — the one, the only desirable gift left 
on earth (save money), and she glowed towards her sun 
accordingly, then to cool herself drew down a great bough 
of white lilac, and holding it in both hands, dipped her 
face in its wet whiteness. 

‘ ‘ Shall I give you a wrinkle to pass on to the women 
you know?” she said. “Well— tell them never to use 
cosmetics of any kind, but walk in the rain as long as 
their legs will carry them, and let the rain just wash, and 
wash, their faces to its heart’s content !” 

Basil shook his head. 

“You can make a good skin bad, but not a bad one 
good,” he said, and then their eyes met, and each knew 
of what the other was thinking — the mat whiteness of 
one particular woman they knew. 

“Is it wicked to wish any one dead ?’ ’ said Easter, 
chattering away with that pleasure a woman feels when 
she knows whatever nonsense she talks is rights ‘ ‘ because, 
if not, I wish Jem’s uncle would die ” 

“And then Jem would come home. That’s why you 
look so happy. There’s a contented look about a woman 
who has a man to harry — or make happy — when she 
hasn’t, she becomes meagre, restless — she has missed 
her vocation, and knows it. A man is bound to come 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


227 


home to his tea — if for a whipping or a kiss, there the 
poor worm is. I don’t speak of men who have not 
moral or home instincts, of course.” 

‘ ‘ Of yourself, in short. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Perhaps. And he’ 11 be delighted to see you looking 
so much stronger, ’ ’ he added, ‘ ‘ than when I saw you in 
the Green-room — which must be nearly a week ago.” 

“It seems years,” said Easter, “and centuries since — ’* 

She paused. 

“ Since we played our game of Touch-last,” he said. 

‘ ‘ Oh !’ ’ cried Easter, with something like a shiver, ‘ ‘ it 
was touch-and-go work, but your blood is alive — I can 
understand now why men brave unheard-of dangers, and 
go to the remotest countries to hunt big game ! I would, 
too, if I were a man. And I shall never pity the ‘ red- 
wood dog,’ as we call the fox, so long as he is not caught, 
bien entendu!^' 

She nodded at him impertinently, throwing back her 
head, and Easter had one of those faces that is lovely in 
the foreshortening, just as when you hold a candle under 
one woman’s chin, she is charming, while another is 
hideous ; the trick seems to lie in small straight features, 
and a short upper lip. 

Basil laughed, and looked at her in a proprietary way 
that amused without irritating her. In Jem it would have 
produced the liveliest desire to kick him. 

“ Where is Nan this morning?” he said ; “she is usu- 
ally out by this time.” 

‘ ‘ Hugon is giving her a music-lesson. Have you ever 
heard Hugon play? It’s the one determined thing about 
her, and makes you feel, as Dinkie says, ‘ that if she meant 
to commit a murder, she would do it !” ’ 

“ Then I suppose if she meant Burgh ersh to fall in love 
with her, he would do it. Isn’t it a wonderful thing?” 

“What?” 

“ That she should fall in love with him like that.” 

“It is a perfectly natural thing,” cried Easter, blazing 
round on him like a little fury. “It’s the only thing she 
could do — if I did it, why shouldn’t she?” 

“ But did you?” 

They had stopped in the middle of the gravel path, 
defiance in the girl’s eyes, provoking laughter in the 


228 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


man’s, and Easter put both hands behind her back, so 
intense was her longing to box his ears on the spot. 

“How did you know it?” she said, ignoring his last 
question. She never told you, I know. Neither did 
Nan.” 

“ It was the way she said — Jem,’’ replied Basil, still with 
that maddening look of amused enquiry. “There’s a 
peculiar reverence and tenderness in the way she utters it > 
— for instance, you pronounce it in quite a different way.” 

‘ ‘ And pray how is that ?’ ’ said Easter, so haughtily 
that it suddenly struck this accomplished student of 
woman that indomitable pride was after all the ruling 
characteristic of her character. “ If I did not say it as it 
should be said, then I am the most ungrateful, wicked 
woman on God’s earth to-day !” 

How poignantly sweet came the perfume of the red 
May by which they were standing, it mingled with their 
thoughts, and passed into their memories as a scent will 
while a heart-breaking sorrow is forgotten, and the real 
duel that had been played hitherto in jest by these two, 
began from this moment in bitter earnest. 

Basil removed his straw hat as in mechanical acknowl- 
edgment of a praiseworthy sentiment, and with rather 
less interest than he displayed when he performed the 
same office for “ God save the Queen.” 

“ O !” cried Easter, rashly, unadvisedly, as they moved 
on again side by side, “you don’t know — you and your 
Lala — that it is possible for a man to be good without 
being dull, and that, though it is picturesque and good 
form to be wicked, the wickedness itself bores you after a 
time ! I never saw people more utterly sick of them- 
selves and everybody else than people I met out in Town 
— just as tired and jejune as we all used to get here at 
Penroses in the winter,” she paused and looked round as 
if she saw only leafless trees and empty flower-beds, 
through which even the lilac and yellow spears of the cro- 
cus had not pierced, “for it is not always Maytime here.” 

“ Your name has always puzzled me,” he said. “Were 
you born in spring ?’ ’ 

“Yes. On Easter day. And for once mother was 
fanciful, and called me after the day. Don’t you miss her 
taking you walks round the garden ! She is longing to 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


229 


come back, but it isn’t safe yet, the doctor says. Isn’t it 
a pity the wistaria fades so soon ?’ ’ She drew a translu- 
cent cluster across her lips. “ It’ s something like a life — all 
the fun first — that’s the flower — then the leaves — that’s 
repentance.” 

‘‘To any one as — ^prudent as you are,” said Basil, 
calmly, ‘ ‘ I should say repentance would never be neces- 
sary. ’ ’ 

Easter hopped out of the mould, peppered with 
flowers, on which she had encroached to reach the wis- 
taria, as if it burnt her. It is almost as hateful to be 
called discreet — otherwise, a hedger — as to be dubbed 
‘‘nice-looking” — but by a severe effort she restrained 

herself and said, ‘‘We can’t all be ” She paused, 

and as we daily do, substituted one thing or person for 
another — ‘‘Nans. And Nan is a whole-souled idiot. 
That is what Dinkie called her this morning — and I 
should not like to come the cropper that Nan will come — 
and over her best instincts too, if she gets into the hands 
of the wrong man.” 

‘‘ A woman nearly always does that.” 

‘‘And a man?” cried Easter, scornfully. He runs 
through the letters of the alphabet — spells it backwards 
— picks out the A or Z he has finally decided on — and 
makes it miserable. ’ ’ 

Basil was silent. Now, there is the pause of dulness, 
and the pause of strength, when dulness measures the 
difficulty, and quails, and when strength slowly gathers 
itself together, and overcomes it. 

They had come now to those Green-room windows 
that made such admirable full-length mirrors in which to 
view oneself, and Basil, looking at their two reflections, 
thought what a little girl Easter looked — and a ruffled 
little girl, too — as if she had just quarrelled with her 
favourite doll, as he jestingly told her. But the Abbey 
bells chiming the hour suddenly claimed her attention. 

‘‘The post is in !!’ she said, looking up at him with 
the glad triumph of a schoolboy who knows his ‘‘ tuck” 
is round the corner, and she disappeared like a flash of 
greased lightning into the house. 

‘‘Jem,” he said, with a look of intense disgust, as he 
got out his cigarette case, ‘ ‘ to be beaten by 2,— Jem ’ 

20 


230 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

“ I stooped, methought, the dove to take, 

When lo ! I saw a bright green snake 
Coiled round its wings and neck. 

Close by the dove’s its head it crouched, 

Green as the herbs on which it couched. 

Swelling its neck as she swelled hers.” 

Lala’s letters arrived at intervals, addressed with a 
bold precision that argued her intimate knowledge of 
Basil’s character, to the “ Royal George.” He did not 
reply to them, and she did not even know he was there, 
but was sure of it all the same, and if she ironically con- 
gratulated him on his present happiness, allowed him to 
see that she did not expect it to last. 

The newspapers had informed her of Jem’s attendance 
on an exalted relative, and save that the venue was Pen- 
roses, and not, as she supposed, the Hangingshaw, she 
knew as precisely what was going forward as if she were 
there herself. And Basil would come back to her to be 
— amused. Meanwhile, she tried to interest herself in a 
man who was attracted by her reputation, not herself, 
and failed. 

Jem, watching by the bedside of the man whose eyes 
mutely implored those around to forgive him for being 
so inconsiderately long a-dying, thought incessantly of 
Easter, but always of her as sitting beside him in the 
glade ; the daughter of Margot, who would have loved 
her, as she would have loved Margot. His mind hardly 
ever glanced at her as in Basil’s company — as she often 
must be, since her father’s business required the Russian’s 
presence at Penroses. And Jem was sure now that he 
understood Easter better than any one in the world did 
— so sure that if an angel came down from Heaven and 
warned him, he would never dare to doubt her. He had 
got to the core of her heart, which was pure as heaven. 

But meanwhile he chafed and longed to return to her, 
far away from the spring in that upper chamber of the 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


231 


gloomy castle, but from which he took long, long excur- 
sions in the spirit through his woods with her, or climbed 
with eager steps those terraces that seemed ever to make 
freer his existence, a part of creation even as the dim 
coast-line that seemed to merge itself into the infinity of 
heaven itself, and his absence was lamented by more than 
one person, notably by Daddy Gardner, who coming 
oyer high cockalorum to Penroses, found himself de- 
cidedly out in the cold, and those erstwhile enemies, 
Basil and Mrs. Burghersh, as he expressed it, “thick as 
thieves.’’ 

It worried the long-nosed, strenuous-faced Daddy, 
and he revolved many schemes in his mind for awaken- 
ing the young pair to a sense of what was decorous, but 
could hit upon none, till finding himself alone with Easter 
at an odd moment, he blurted out his warning, then fled 
from the storm he brought down on his devoted head — 
and did not come again. 

Nan was never to be seen. Hugon seemed to have 
kidnapped the child under pretence of teaching her. 
Tom Denison was always away, Maria and the shavers 
still at the sea. Melons at boarding-school, Dinkie ab- 
sorbed in ’oss ’air, Bunkulorum and the Snapper at the 
grammar-school, and through the long hours all the love- 
liness of that May garden was for two persons alone, — 
Lala’s best young man, and Jem’s wife. 

Nan choked down her dim misgivings with the cer- 
tainty that Easter watched every post in with the ardour 
of a lover. She really saw less than anyone else (save 
Tom) of what was going on, and only lamented Hugon’s 
energy in teaching her things she did not want to know, 
and which would adorn her inelegant self about as much 
as a little powder disposed upon the face of a blackamoor. 

She was moreover somewhat preoccupied by an amaz- 
ing fact that had made her walk on air, she had received 
a compliment. Sitting on the top of a haystack one 
morning, weeping on account of her ugliness, which had 
just been forcibly presented to her, she overheard one 
stable-help say to another (who had apparently acted as 
eavesdropper) that for his part, he couldn’t see Miss Nan 
was so ugly after all — she’d got the beautifullest dancing- 
legs he ever saw in his life ! 


232 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


Tom wondered irritably why Strokoff did not go. It 
might have been observed that Tom was not quite at 
ease with Basil, who had lied to Easter as to the extent 
of her father’s obligations to him, and no matter how 
delicately such favours were conferred, Tom weakened 
at sight of this earthly Providence, and as men the two 
no longer stood level. And Hugon’s masterly manipu- 
lation of matters prevented his being aware of the amount 
of time Easter and Basil spent together, and the maids 
and Sweet William smiled indulgently. If there is any- 
thing on earth servants heartily co-operate with, it is a 
little unlawful love-making, if they are not ‘ ‘ bluffed’ ’ by 
the chief actors, be it understood, but take them into 
your confidence, and they will die rather than betray 
you. 

Here it was above board, quite innocent, but extremely 
dangerous, and if ever an old man by shuffling off his 
mortal coil could do another a signally good turn, that 
man was Jem Burghersh’s uncle. Yet a fortnight passed 
before the worst minute that can come in any man’s life 
was over. 

Maria had some bad moments when she remembered 
that Hugon’s waist was not like the Mariner’s, horrific to 
the male eye, and she did not share Dinkie’s admiration 
for the character of Tom Jones. Privately she thought 
all Toms were pretty much alike, and did not trust one 
of them. However, it wanted now but three days to her 
return — and then the “procession,” as Dinkie politely 
called it, of children, babies, nurses, dogs, Noah’s Arks, 
with live samples of its contents, and the rest of it would 
arrive. And Jem’s uncle having paid his last debt, Jem 
might be expected home at latest within a week. 

Some of Easter’s joyousness left her as the day grew 
near, and the table-land on which she frolicked seemed to 
recede under her feet, bringing her to the edge of a sharp 
precipice, at which everything stopped — nor did she dare 
to look beyond. 

It had come now to the very last night, and in the 
drawing-room, a long and many- windowed apartment, 
the loveliest of all the rooms at Penroses, Hugon was 
playing “ Musica Proibita” without any accompaniment 
of song, but with a genius, a searching pathos that made 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


233 


the soul of the girl who sings over and over the pro- 
hibited love words of her banished lover rise in a wail of 
inextinguishable regret, of insatiable longing and baulked 
passion that haunted at least one of the hearers’ hearts 
and memories for all time. 

Nan had stolen up close, and was drinking eagerly in 
the whole passionate love-story. Some music melted the 
very heart within her, and her thoughts embraced all 
who were in sorrow, and she longed for them to be happy 
too. At such times she forgave everyone who had 
wronged her, only wishing that they might love her in- 
stead, and her whole soul went out in a wave of love and 
pity to all human kind, while the mingled joy and agony 
of living overflowed her soul like a generously-filled cup 
— ^and she wept. 

Who that has seen a vast multitude spell-bound, en- 
raptured, a prey to the sweetest emotions, would rather 
not be the man who wrote the intermezzo of ‘ ‘ Cavelleria 
Rusticana’ ’ than one of the crowned kings of the world ? 
The orator upon whose words a vast populace hangs, the 
singer whose voice unlocks the gates of heaven, the mu- 
sician who can by his notes speak straight from his soul 
to the souls of millions, who shall match them in power, 
or what great writer or painter, or sculptor can ever es- 
tablish the electric sympathy between themselves and 
those who enjoy their master-pieces, as do these others? 

Tom did not care for music, and shared the feelings of 
those dogs who always uplift their voices in howls when 
approached by sweet sounds, and he had long ago beat a 
retreat to the dining-room, and the comforts of tobacco 
and whiskey, so that save for Easter and Basil, who sat a 
little way apart together, others in the long dimly-lit room 
except the player and Nan there were none. 

Basil knew the words well, Easter found them in her 
heart, and Nan, not knowing, understood them also. 

“ Vorrei bacaire i tuo^ capelli ^eri, ^ 

Le labbralue e gliacchi tuoi severi, 

Vorrei morir con te* angel di Dio, 

O bella innamorata, tesor niio. 
#«?**** 

Stringuimi, o cara, stringuimi al tuo cor 
Fammi provar I’ebbrezze dell’ amor.” 

^20^ 


234 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


‘ ‘ Amor. ’ ’ It sounds the same in every language un- 
der heaven, the blind, the deaf, the dumb know it, and it 
lingered in the minds of those who listened, when Hugon 
plunged suddenly into wild Hungarian strains, recalling 
that enthralling music which the Tzigans draw from their 
violins and cymbals, such melody as stirs the heart to its 
utmost depths, and penetrates to the very marrow of 
one’s bones, and while sending exquisite thrills through 
the whole body, somehow lifts the soul to the highest 
heights of Heaven. 

When at last those throbbing notes, indefinitely pro- 
longed, ceased, Basil turned his keen dark face and looked 
at Easter, lying in the midst of a heap of chocolate silken 
cushions, with a falling fire of pink topazes on her breast, 
looked at her till their eyes met, and fierce, lawless, com- 
pelling, there gazed out at her that which the good woman 
trembles at, and seeks to keep back, that the base one 
rouses, and fosters by every unholy artifice in her power. 
For a moment only she saw it, then Basil leaped to his 
feet, and fled as one pursued by the Furies out into the 
cool night. 

As a rule, he did not feel the power of music, but when 
a man is, if only temporarily, under the influence of a 
woman, what afiects her, affects him also, and Hugon’s 
demon-playing had roused a kindred devil in him, and so 
— and so — the black drop in him had been stirred, ay, 
but it should not spread to a sea ! 

The breeze fanned his brow, and clearing the mists from 
his brain, also dissipated his passion. He laughed at 
himself for a madman, as he went with swift step down 
the wet lawn, and brushed against the chairs in which he 
and Easter had been sitting that afternoon. . . . Easter 
— Easter, it had been nothing else but Easter these past 
fourteen days ; she had begun to form part of a habit, and 
therefore hard to do without . . . it is in the little things, 
mere homely trifles, that a woman does for a man, that 
he gets to love her intimately . . . that he gets used to 
her, and so takes the first step towards wanting her 
always ... or at least until he does not want her at all. 

But he did not want Easter, he was quite sure of that ; 
wounded pique, desire, obstinacy, a determination not to 
be beaten — a mixture, in short, of all the worst traits in 


A MAAT OF TODAY. 


235 


his character, artfully fomented and kept alive by Hugon, 
had detained him beside this girl, and made him exert 
his utmost influence to make her love him, but as to let- 
ting himself go, to allowing himself to be mastered, he 
laughed aloud at the thought, as he stood under the trees 
where she, a flitting lure of most delicious promise, had 
beckoned him, and now the same fever with a difference 
was upon him — and he longed to hold her, if but for one 
moment, in his arms . . . the sweet that is out of our 
reach how sweet it is . . . yet when, perchance, after 
some such long search and suffering as Endymion’s, it is 
ours, does it not vanish quickly into that limbo of for- 
gotten things which we are pleased to dignify with the 
name of disillusions ? 

There is a story told of a lover who, on returning, 
complained bitterly of the trembling of a plank by which 
he had crossed over to his beloved. 

“But you did not complain when you came over,” 
reproachfully said the waiting-woman w’ho held it. 

“You fool,” he said, “ that was before — this is after.” 

And that momentary desire, first beneath the trees that 
night when Easter had eluded him, and again in the 
moonlight’s glamour, had been as it were crystallized, 
made permanent by infruition, whereas had it been grati- 
fied, he would probably have been bitterly disappointed, 
and in any case have long ago forgotten her. For a man 
is so, that he always remembers the woman he cannot 
get, and straightway forgets those that he can. 

It is the unknown that fills our thoughts, the mysteri- 
ous that commands our highest faculties of search, and 
we turn away from the page clear with beautiful meaning 
to the hieroglyphics of a tortuous riddle that we shall be 
none the wiser or better for painfully seeking to learn the 
meaning of, and for which we have no use when we have 
learned it. 

And if it were not for the doubt, the enchantment, 
thrown over that instinct which man calls love, how would 
he find courage to love, to marry, to endure the thousand 
stripes and punishments that may be inflicted ' on the 
heart that he puts naked into another’s keeping? It is 
one of the most felicitous frauds ever invented by the 
Final Cause, for the cozenment of poor humans, that by 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


236 

this same glamour men and women should be hoodwinked 
into becoming careworn citizens and citizenesses ; they 
would never do it, these poor human souls, with open 
eyes, therefore are they blinded, that the world may still 
go round, 

And the individual suflfers, and the race is more and more.” 

Basil cursed Hugon and her Tzigan melodies . . . 
prohibited music indeed, catch that icicle Easter sing- 
ing over to herself anything he had ever said to her 
. . . there was the rub, that she had kept her head all 
through ; had she seemed ever so little embarrassed at so 
unexpectedly seeing him, he might have kept cool him- 
self, but she had defied him into doing his best — or worst 
— to make her love him, and even now he did not know 
with what result . . . not even after that burning look 
they had but now exchanged. 

Of wooing in its ordinary sense between them, there 
had been none. He had offered her no violence or ten- 
derness of love, but had apparently only taken up that 
interrupted thread of friendship in which they had come 
to know and admire each other better, which Nan’s ap- 
pearance in Town had summarily broken. 

And but for Hugon’ s superb diplomacy in now throw- 
ing them together, they might have continued proud and 
alienated — as after the Park Lane incident they had re- 
mained — ^to the end. He wished to God that they had, 
for what possible end could come to him in this thing 
but humiliation and defeat? This was no summer’s 
day intrigue, that dies naturally in its own fulfilment, and 
to give himself away, to let himself go for nothing, was 
altogether out of the calculations of this finished man of 
the world, to whom ambition was so much more than 
love, and who had so carefully kept heart out of all his 
enjoyments until now. 

It was Jem whom Easter really loved, whom she had 
preferred all through, though she did not know it, and 
as to her fancy for himself, Basil doubted if it had gone 
very deep. He knew — none better — that there must be 
two men to make a woman’s state really emotional, one 
whom she suffers to make love to her, and one whom she 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


237 


denies, so that between the two, love never leaves her. 
No wise man desires to be loved seriously — he flees from 
such devastating flame as from a plague — it is the over- 
flow of the serious passion he wants to make him com- 
fortable, not the passion itself. 

Now, if it had been Nan ? . . . Involuntarily he looked 
upwards, and the thousand eyes of the night answered 
his, the exhalations of swelling bud and twig, of growing 
green things cooled his soul as the swift movement to and 
fro had soothed his restless body, the one human thing in 
this quiet hour, that moved unquietly. A sense of his 
own nothingness, of the paltriness of his life and aims, of 
the evanescence, more, of the sin of such a passion as his, 
was suddenly borne in upon him, and a contempt for him- 
self, that included Easter, moved him — for what place 
had such poor mockery of love as theirs among the grand 
doings of the universe ? Nan was in harmony with it, as 
he once had been, but now the meanest thing that crawled 
was nobler than was he to-night . . . and he grew sane 
as he stood there in the darkness, and thrust his desire 
from him, crying out to God that he would have none of 
it, that he would ^o hence, and regain that command of 
himself which in his life’s wrong-doing he had deliberately 
refused to acquire. 

It was a weary man, his hair damp with dew, his face 
cold and pale with past struggle, who presently re-entered 
Penroses, and on the very threshold found his way barred 
by Hugon. 

“ What do you want?” he said, roughly, and would 
have passed her. 

“Nan wants you ; she is upstairs.” 

She pointed upwards to the drawing-room, and spoke 
the lie bravely. He had never disobeyed any wish of 
Nan’s yet. With lagging, unwilling footsteps, he went. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


238 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

“ As I sat on the deep sea sand, 

I saw a fair ship nigh at land. 

I waved my wings, I beat my beak, 

The ship sunk, and I heard a shriek, 

There they lie — one, two, and three.” 

Easter sat motionless as a statue long after Basil had 
gone out, and Nan retired to bed. If she needed illumi- 
nation, if she wanted to know what she was, and might 
yet become, Basil’s eyes had told her, and stripped naked 
of all pretence, all deceitful show of friendship, Basil’s 
passion declared itself for what it was, one that no true 
woman could be proud of awakening. 

She was Jem’s wife ... his wife . . . and another 
man misled by her caprice, had dared to look at her thus. 
And whose was the fault ? She had scoffed at principle, 
trampled on duty, laid herself out for admiration, and 
Basil had taken her at her own valuation — and told her 
so. It was not love — not love, this scorching flame that 
bit and stung her soul . . . ah ! but there was no mo- 
notony in this, as in Jem’s love ; here were excitement, 
peril, passion, all that makes life course through the veins 
at its fiercest and keenest, and urging her onward to 
Heaven or hell — all one, so Basil and she were together. 
But to-night there suddenly recurred to her Daddy’s 
flushed face, when he had dared to warn her, and only 
got severely snubbed for his pains. 

He had felt it keenly, for his love for her was a very 
real factor in his life, but his only reproach to her as he 
turned away, had moved Easter. 

“ If ever you want a friend, Mrs. Burghersh,’* he had 
said, “come to me. I’ll help you; right or wrong to 
other people, you will never be wrong to me, ’ ’ for as he 
saw her then, the blood ebbing and flowing in her cheeks 
— that vivid blood which surely owed not to earth its 
heavenly dye— she looked so transparently fragile that a 
great fear almost stopped the boy’ s honest, Sundering 
heart, and he cursed Jem for a fool. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


239 


We are all too apt to rate a man by his effect on others, 
and Easter had undoubtedly been influenced by Basil’s 
position and extraordinary distinction in Town, while the 
extent of his personal charm was only to be gauged by the 
way other people, in contradistinction with him, irritated 
her, and put her on the worst possible terms with herself. 

And she was deeply grateful for what he had done to 
save her father, and as they dawdled about the garden, 
or conversed, in the real sense of the word, for the first 
time in their lives within doors, he got that chance — for 
which he had latterly become keen — of making her feel 
the power she defied. And Hugon — probably no average 
person is conscious of taking his first downward step — to 
nimself only he appears to be tempted to do so ; yet the 
step is taken. Usually he would not take it at all, but 
that circumstance decides it for him — circumstance, that 
thief of good intentions and juggler with our most hon- 
ourably laid-out plans, which has brought about more sin 
than all the deliberately-intended evil-doing in the world. 

But Hugon knew what she was doing very well in- 
deed, and Jem’s good influence, that had been to her 
dark soul as one of those reflected lights that you may 
sometimes see far beneath you in a pool among black 
sea-weeded rocks, went out shuddering, as, Basil having 
fled and Nan departed for the night, she laid her hand on 
Easter’s shoulder, and stooped dovm to look intently into 
her face. 

“ What is it ?” she said. 

Some women might have been moved from their pur- 
pose by the look Easter turned on Hugon, but as this 
woman had deliberately pushed her down the steep in- 
cline of temptation, so she now felt no impulse to stay 
the strong hand uplifted to dash the girl to perdition. 

“See here,” she said, austerely, and drew from her 
breast a small packet that she placed in the girl’s hands, 
“you have often asked me for Basil Strokoff’s letters 
written to you at Fairmile, and I told you they were de- 
stroyed I told you a lie. Read them in your own 
room — put on your wrapper, and come back to me 
here.” 

Easter trembled violently, and held the letters fast. 

“ He must not find me here,” she said. 


240 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


“He is smoking with your father; he will not come 
upstairs again to-night.” 

But Easter was already half way to the Blue-room, in 
the midst of which she stood trembling, and bathed in 
the queer light that came through the bluish-green glass 
that shaded the lamp. 

Women are sometimes as much alike in moments of 
strong excitement as black and white men are in growing 
alike a white beard when they are old ; you expect the 
black man’s beard to remain black always, but it doesn’t, 
and a true woman always wants to take off her trinkets 
before giving herself up to the luxury of reading a love- 
letter. So Easter tore off her evening gown and jewels, 
threw on that immoral white silk wrapper, of which men- 
tion has already been made, and stood up to read the 
love-letters, only four in number, written to her just upon 
a year ago. 

Characteristic, reckless, impassioned, chivalrous even 
in their boldness, they were the letters of the hawk to 
the dove, the man of the world to the ingenue, yet they 
were flesh and blood, too, and struck a chord of romance 
in Easter that had never been wakened before, and she 
thought how strangely they contrasted with that coldness 
in Basil which had distinguished his early conduct to her 
at Penroses, though, if they meant anything, they meant 
that he had loved her right through, at Fairmile, at Pen- 
roses, in Town, and again with ever-cumulative strength 
at the present time. 

He had not loved Lala, he had loved her. And even 
the proudest woman’s heart may bow to a momentary 
longing almost as passionate, as intense, as the man’s 
masterful desire of possession, and though she feel it to 
be shameful when her limbs grow weak, and self-mastery 
is ever so slightly threatened, is she not in such moments 
almost half compensated for the disadvantage of her sex ? 

She tried to think of Jem, but he was blurred, a mere 
shadow. Basil, as he had looked at her to-night, as he 
had but now spoken to her — (were not these written 
words fresh and living as if just uttered ?) — filled all her 
horizon, and so possessed her that she did not even know 
how she got to the drawing-room, or even that she was 
there at all, till in a long mirror she saw herself, white as 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


241 


snow, with deep, dark eyes full of fire, and soft lips that 
trembled as if intoxicated by their own speech as they 
whispered, — 

“He loves me . . . I’m afraid” .... 

The enormous sleeves of her wide white wrapper, 
caught up to the very shoulders, showed her bare arms 
clasped above her head, and crushed down the dark 
rings of hair with that whiteness ; beneath the masses of 
Mechlin lace her breast heaved, and the curve of her 
young neck showed, white as the drifted snow. 

A door closed behind her ; she turned and half- 
stretched out the letters, as in witness. ‘ ‘ He loves me, ’ ’ 
she said again, and all disordered with emotion, moved a 
step forward, to find herself face to face, not with Hugon, 
but Basil ! 

Cold — with renunciation in his eyes — he looked at her 
— at the letters, knowing them for his own — knowing 
also that, kindled by them for the moment at least, and 
at last, Easter loved him. 

At sight of him her breath came short — her limbs 
trembled — shame and fear were in her eyes, and all the 
young allures, the moonlight beauties of sorrow were 
revealed in her . . . sorrow of his making, and a man 
loves the sight of his own handiwork, even if it be evil, 
and all at once the loveliness that he had but coldly 
admired took passionate hold of him ; for out yonder, 
under the stars, he had reckoned without the woman, 
ay, and without the man in himself, and his face changed, 
and broke up in convulsions. The crucial temptation of 
his life had come, and he went down before it, as all 
along, knowing the flaw in his character, he had been 
morally certain he should do, if he suffered himself to be 
tempted. What he wanted, that he must have — would 
have — never counting the cost, and now he had got 
beyond himself, and made no pretence at self-control. 
He wanted Easter, and told her so in a way to thrill her 
with mingled ecstasy and terror — his eyes and voice 
carrying to her no meaning but love — love boundless 
— all-subduing — all-entreating, sweeter than oblivion — 
stronger than death — fierce as the current that sweeps 
the mariner on to the jagged rocks that await him. 

For awhile she heard him as one in a stupor, then, 

■L q 21 


242 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


when as with a leaping gesture he would have snatched 
her in his arms, she stepped back, and lifting one arm 
with a wild, imploring gesture, — 

“ O ! poor Jem /’ ’ she said. 

That poignant note of anguish — of appeal to him 
against herself, arrested him where he stood. So might 
Nan have spoken, or that better angel whose promptings 
he had become too deaf to hear, so had the stars coun- 
selled him, but now they spoke too late, his passions 
had mastered him, and he would have gone through a 
lake of fire after Easter to-night. 

“Say you love me, O ! my beauty, just once!” he 
cried, exultantly, “say it I” 

But she fell back before him. 

“Jem,” she said, pitifully, as one who repeats a 
charm, or a child in its fear a prayer it has been taught, 
and ever falling back before that masterful advance, 
towards the door. 

“Jem,” he said, “what of him? The poor fool had 
his chance, and lost it. O 1 you have led me a fine 
dance, Easter, but now you are mine. I let you go 
once — twice — but you shall not escape me again, and I 
will teach you what love is,” and he stooped down and 
kissed her bare arm so fiercely that all the outrage and 
shame of an hour ago rushed over her, for though we 
may bear cruel scourging for love’s sake, we must be 
very sure that it is love himself who scourges us. 

“ You can teach me nothing,” she said, very low, “for 
I will learn no new lesson save from Jem.” 

“ By God I” he cried, furiously, “ I will break you, or 
leave you . . . and I will not leave you I” 

He had closed his hand over hers on the door-handle. 
The fever had ebbed away, and left her cold as ice. Pale 
as the dead, they glared into each other’s faces, measur- 
ing swords, and seeking each a sign of weakening in the 
other. 

“ You frail, beautiful thing,” he said, in that voice of 
music which had such power to thrill women’s hearts, 
“ how dare you stand up to me like this? It has been a 
game of Catch-last all through, and now I have caught 
you — and, by God, I’ll keep you !” 

Something stirred under their hands, someone was 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


2*43 

turning the handle on the other side of the door, and 
Easter cried, “Thank God !“ and Basil’s face changed to 
that of a devil. 

It was Sweet William, asking if he might put out the 
lamps for the night, and Basil’s hand tightened like a 
vice on hers as he bade the man begone, and with his 
lips strangled the terrified cry with which she besought 
help. 

“You thanked God too soon,’’ he said, below his 
breath, as turning he seized her arms and locked them 
fiercely about his neck. 

Below stairs, Hugon, mixing Tom’s whiskey and water 
strong, and encouraging him to the recital of those ex- 
ploits in the hunting-field for which he was justly famous, 
once or twice, quite in the wrong place, laughed — laughed 
as fiends laugh, not because they are happy, but because 
they have reduced some happy soul to their own miser- 
able estate. 

The drawing-room lamps were still alight, but the room 
was empty, and all the house quiet, when, having seen 
neither Easter nor Basil again, Hugon, accompanying 
Tom’s somewhat devious steps upstairs, herself retired to 

In the dead of night Nan woke suddenly, and sat up. 
Someone had touched her — had kissed her — the door was 
shut, but something had just passed through it, she could 
almost feel a palpable presence, and immediately her 
thoughts flew to Easter, and her body took the direction 
of her thoughts. 

All the passages were in darkness, and only a faint 
glimmer showed in Easter’s chamber, blue like the hang- 
ings of the apartment, and casting a weird light on th^e 
bed that Nan saw at a glance was empty — more, that it 
had evidently not been slept in that night. 

The child stood still, at fault — where was Easter ? In- 
stinct rather than thought made her turn to the window, 
and lift a corner of the blind, for she was well aware of 
Easter’s wild gipsy ways that had only broken out in her 
— or perhaps on that very account only — since her transla- 
tion to the well-ordered dulness of the Hangingshaw, and 


244 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


the whim might have seized her to go out into the gar- 
den, wild and unfettered as any night-bird or creature 
there. 

Nan flew back to her room, and wasted some time in 
dressing, owing to the fact that as usual, on retiring, she 
had hurled each article of her attire to ri^ht and left of 
her, and could find no matches with which to discover 
the missing fellows to boots and stockings. When at ^ 
last she was, after a fashion, clad, she presented a curious 
spectacle, though like Maryanne in the song “she’d no 
idea when she went out, she’d go so /hr.’’ 

It did not surprise her to find the lawn door ajar, but 
as she stood listening, and uncertain which direction to 
take, to her astonishment a murmur of voices, faint, but 
easily to be distinguished, reached her from the direction 
of the stables. 

To run along the shrubbery and dash through the ivied 
door was the work of a moment. It swung to with a 
bang, and gave warning of her approach, for on entering 
the courtyard, and turning involuntarily to the strange 
spectacle of a lantern hung against the stable wall, Basil 
faced her, stern and menacing, and when she would have 
got past him to what she half imagined, half saw beyond, 
he harshly bade her go back, for she was not wanted here 
— to go back at once . . . 

Nan scarcely understood him . . . this was not Basil 
— this man whose face was mad and bad — whose voice 
was cruel — who seemed in the grip of some savage and 
brutal passion that savoured more of hate than love, and 
perhaps more of revenge than either . . . 

‘ ‘ What are you doing with Easter ?’ ’ she cried, strug- 
gling with him as he held her back, “she is over there, 
in the dog-cart . . . Where are you going? Easter? 
Easter I'' 

The cry burst from her very soul — instinct told her that 
as well trust a lamb with a wolf as her sister with Basil in 
the mood he was now in, and that passion-possessed, 
devil-controlled, deafer than any adder was he at that 
moment to the voice of reason or wildest supplication. 
His blood was up — a man — neither to hold nor to bind, he 
dashed her aside as the fierce wind drives a straw, leaped 
to Easter’s side in the dog-cart, and drove furiously away. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


245 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

** It is too late to be on our guard when we are in the midst of mis- 
fortune. ’ ’ — Seneca. 

The absence of Easter from the Penroses breakfast- 
table did not excite comment, but when Nan was also not 
to be found in the ranks of the prayerful, enquiry was 
instituted with the result that her clothes — some of her 
clothes — none of them matches — were reported as miss- 
ing, whereupon Dinkie, inwardly reviling her for discov- 
ering some pleasant thing she had not invited him to 
share, resolved to make things warm for her at the first 
convenient opportunity. 

But a stable help could have told tales of a disreputable 
old shoe picked up in the courtyard, and the head groom 
was scratching his head in wonder as to where Mrs. Burg- 
hersh’s dog-cart and Rufus had got to, while within 
doors the maids were whispering about a bed that had 
not been slept in, and Sweet William made himself 
master of the situation by averring that Prince Strokoff’s 
angry voice had bade him begone from the drawing-room 
when he went up to turn the lamps out last night, and 
that he was almost sure he heard Miss Easter’s voice cry 
out after him to come back. He had gone back, but the 
door was fast held, and there was a sound of struggling 
inside, but the order to go had been so fierce, he dared not 
interfere, and went to bed instead. 

While they were staring at each other, and being 
country-bred and dutiful, hesitating to put into words 
what town servants would have fought over each other to 
say, word was brought that the dog-cart had been found 
knocked to pieces in the road just outside a distant rail- 
way station, while Rufus was discovered taking a morn- 
ing refresher off a convenient truss of hay, that he had 
discovered in a truck on a siding. 

Dinkie neglected business to stride into the parlour 
with the news, wrathfully connecting the catastrophe with 
Nan, who, as he put it, must have gone very much off 
21* 


246 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


her chump indeed, to collar the dog-cart and go out driv- 
ing, the Lord and she didn’t know where, but then the 
moon was at the full, and she was always more cracked 
at such times than others, and a devil of a shine there 
would be when the Chief came to find it out, which would 
be pretty quick. 

And she had run away from the consequences, of course 
— -just like a girl when she had made a mess of everything 
— and he ’sposed she wouldn’t come home till she was 
starved out — and wouldn’t she get it hot when she did ! 

Bunkulorum, who belonged to the class of persons who 
see and don’t talk, while Dinkie usually talked and did 
not see, happening to be at home with the toothache, 
quietly remarked that he did not believe Nan had taken 
out the dog-cart at all, but probably Easter, or perhaps, 
he added, in a colourless way, possibly Basil Strokoff 
might be able to throw some light on the occurrence, as 
he had disappeared also, or at least his letters had been 
sent round from ‘ ‘ The George, ’ ’ as^he had not slept there 
last night. 

Dinkie turned first red, then white, tore up to Easter’s 
room, came quietly back, sat down — and trembled. 

Almost on the instant, Jem Burghersh, who had been 
travelling all night, came rushing in, ardently demanding 
Easter, and in wildest spirits, for it is a fact that the 
funeral of a person in whom you are not greatly inter- 
ested gives a new zest to life, and greatly intensifies your 
appreciation of the joys thereof, and others to come. 

“ Easter is — is not down yet,” said Bunkulorum, rising 
to the occasion, but Jem looked away from their young 
dismayed faces to Hugon, who at that moment came in, 
and he knew as one does know, without a word, with 
scarcely a look, that a great calamity has come upon 
him, and as she stepped swiftly up to where he stood, and 
looked into his face without speaking, in the full flood of 
his happiness he withered at the look, pierced to the very 
core of his heart, which was Easter. And still she did 
not speak, any more than a mother might upon whom is 
laid the command to deal death unto her child, and . . . 
before the tragedy of these two creatures standing eye to 
eye, the one waiting to strike, the other to endure, the 
boys shrank and dwindled away, leaving them alone. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


247 


She never knew, nor did he, how at last words came, 
or how she told him. When he did know, when with 
all the joyous currents of life frozen in his veins, the deadly 
faintness had passed, that was Nature’s revolt against the 
agony laid upon him, he put her back with a gesture that 
was grand in its simple unbelief. 

“You say that Easter has gone away with Prince 
Strokoff,” he said. “ I do not believe it. She was my 
wife — I know her better than any of you do — I under- 
stand her thoroughly, and she never loved him — she 
loved me. She had a fancy for this man once, but that 
is past, and until she tells me so herself I will not believe 
it. I know what my dear wife could, and could not do 
— and she could not do this thing — it is not in her. ’ ’ 

Hugon had reckoned without the loyalty of this man 
— loyalty, the rarest, most priceless quality on earth, yet 
that was as much enwoven in Jem’s nature as the flesh 
and blood that, commingled, gave him life. 

“God help you !’’ she said, and held out the letters, 
open, that Easter had left behind, scattered in her 
flight. 

He just glanced at, without touching them, then looked 
away. 

“ You call yourself her friend,” he said, sternly, “and 
she was always good to you. God forgive me if I am 
wrong, but I think you have a spite against her.” 

He looked as one who does not see, round the homely 
parlour, but a scrap of Easter’s needlework that he knew 
brought sight back to his eyes, and he snatched it up, and 
kissed it, then hid the gaily-coloured thing away gently 
in his breast pocket, inestimably dear to him since it was 
hers. 

Hugon realised then how all her love had been in 
vain, how it was not even love at all to him, who did not 
desire it, for a man’s selfishness — even the best of them — 
is the very grain and proof of his manhood, and what he 
does not want, that he will not have, for to him it is less 
than dross. 

In a moment of time she saw how beautiful her first 
conception of love might have remained to all time had 
she willed it so . . . for she could not say, like Guine- 
vere, — 


248 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


“ It was my duty to have loved the highest, 

It surely was my profit had I known ; 

It would have been my pleasure had I seen ; 

We needs must love the highest when we see it . , 

for she had seen and known the best all along, and had 
deliberately chosen the evil. If she had been true to her 
first ideal, and saved instead of betraying Easter, Jfem 
would have loved her indeed, with that love which is a 
crown of glory to a w’oman, and ennobling both to him 
and to her. 

There was that in his voice, in his glance, that was ter- 
rible to the woman, for without accusing, he had con- 
demned her, and she knew it — the single heart had 
searched the double one, and to Jem the whitest virtue 
of this woman was blacker than Easter’s blackest sin. 

“ I don’t believe it,” he cried out suddenly and angrily. 
“I will not . . . I dare not ...” and mad, stubborn, 
contemptible, call him what you will, the stand he took 
then he took right through to the end, so ruling himself 
that he never even looked on that other side where mad- 
ness lay. 

Hugon dragged herself after him like some death- 
smitten thing, as he turned to leave her. “The thing 
had very old beginnings,” she said, “and what began at 
Fairmile could only end one way. These letters that 
you will not read were addressed to, and replied to by 
her before you had ever come home to the Shaw. And 
why did he follow her to Penroses? You have been 
blind all through — ^you are vowing yourself to blindness 
still. But you have got to see — you have got to have it 
out with your own soul — and some day you will know — 
will know . . .” 

Jem turned aside that she might not see the greyness 
that crept over his face, and settled there. Easter’s de- 
ceit about Fairmile had long ago hit him hard . . . but 
as he had said no word then, so he said none now. 

“ They have been always together ever since you went 
away,” said Hugon, growing pitiless and beyond herself 
as she found she had absolutely no power to move him ; 
‘ ‘ they have met here before, often, when you did not 
know it — but they had a little shame left, so ran away 
before you came back. Look for them, as you please, 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 249 

and where you please — ^but what Basil Strokoff has, he 
holds, and you will never see her again.” 

“ I shall see her,” said Jem, turning a face steadfast 
and strong to save, as an angel’s upon her, “for she will 
come back to me — wherever she is, and I don’t believe 
for one moment that she has done wrong. She will turn 
to me in her trouble — and I shall be ready for her — with 
only welcome and love. If it is a day, a year, or for 
ever, it will be all the same — the Shaw and I will be wait- 
ing for her — but do not dare ever to speak to me of her 
again — for you have not been her friend — or mine.” 

He would have left her then, but she threw herself in 
his way, and fell at his feet. 

“O, my God!” she cried, with such wild love and 
anguish as might surely have moved the hardest heart to 
pity, but touched his no whit, ‘ ‘ and do you leave me 
thus ? Have / not loved you best ?’ ’ 

“Get up,” he said, harshly, and dragged her to her 
feet, while the shame in his eyes hurt her, she knowing it 
not to be for himself, but for her, and without another word 
or look he would have left her, but she threw herself upon 
him like a wild cat, and held him fast. 

“Listen,” she said, stammering, gibbering out the 
words in her mad haste. “You have taught me . . . 
all I know ... I was a lost, degraded wretch till I knew 
you, and if you raised me, I . . . did . . . you no harm. 
I only wanted to ... to love you. When you came to 
Fairmile ... I loved you more — and more — she did not 
love yoUy and ‘t hurt me — and then it grew and grew 
. . . and I could not live without a sight of you. And 

all the while it was Basil she loved — not you ’ ’ 

“ No,” shouted Jem, trying with as little roughness as 
a man may to unlock her hands from his arm. ‘ ‘ She 
did not, and you” — the scorn in his grey eyes blighted 
her, ‘ ‘ I begin to see it all now — you thought, O I my 
God, that you would take her place — hers — ’ ’ he laughed 
aloud in boundless contempt — “ and it was all a put-up 

thing between you and that man ” 

The deep hate in him swelled out in those last words, 
he trembled violently, and for a moment tottered on the 
verge of seeing y then snatched his self-control again, and 
was calm. 


250 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


“She was only a child,” he said, “a dear little igno- 
rant child, no match for you and him, but, please God, 
you have not done all the harm you wished, and think. 
And, whatever your devil’s work has made her, I love 
her with every fibre of my heart, every throb and pulse 
of my body, and will love her till I crumble to dust. 

Woman ” every emotion of which man is capable 

swelled through the deep diapason of his voice, ‘ ‘ what 
had we done to you, that you should serve us so 
ill?” 

“ I was a stranger and ye took me in,” she said, “ sick 
and ye comforted me . . . but besides all the harm I 
have done, do you think of what I gave youf* 

“ No,” he said, turning wearily to go. 

“ I gave you,” she said, “what a man gave his life to 
win from me — and could not. You asked me often for 
the story of my life. Do you want to know it ?’ ’ 

“No,” he said again. He was not listening. He 
was thinking of Easter. If Hugon had not been tempo- 
rarily mad she must have seen that he did not hear her. 
It might come back upon him later, but he did not hear 
her — now. 

‘ ‘ I was alone in the world, my parents had left me 
nothing — not even a name. I invented the one by which 
I am known. But the stars in their courses fought 
against me — whatever I tried to do right turned out 
wrong. Don’t you think it was a temptation to me in 
my loveless life, when a man — loved me ? First he was 
kind to me, and I was grateful — he was kinder still, and 
I hated his kindness, and, one day, one day, when he 
forced upon me what would have dragged me down, 
down, into a slime where so many butterflies’ wings flut- 
tered, but never rose again — I killed him. He would 
have killed my soul — I slew his body — to save myself — 
because my inner self was dearer to me than the baser 
one— because if I had let him live, he would have made 
me like unto himself, and I chose to give myself up to 
torture first . . . and I spent five years at the travaux 
j^orch (she held up her scarred hands), for they brought 
It in manslaughter only. Women came to me in prison, 
thanked me, blessed me for avenging their wrongs . . . 
and they were so many ... no brute v/as ever so human 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


251 


. . . and now the soul I committed murder to save is 

lost, lost ! for love — pure love ” 

Jem closed the door behind him. The woman had 
already passed out of his recollection. He had gone to 
wait for Easter. 


CHAPTER XL. 

“ It is an easy matter to take away our lives, but a difficult one to 
wipe out the disgrace of it.” — Thucydides. 

A BLACK cloud had swooped down and settled on Pen- 
roses, and in its gloom the older inhabitants stumbled, 
more or less painfully, through the long, early summer 
days, and none more painfully than Tom, who raged 
through his appointed tasks, knowing that the ponderous 
machinery among which he moved was Basil’s, the very 
workmen’s bodies who plied it, Basil’s, ay, and the 
very soul of him, himself, was Basil’s, and that he was 
doing hireling work for the man who had made an inso- 
lent pretence of saving him, to be the better able to cor- 
rupt and ruin his daughter, for with all these things had 
Basil bought Easter’s soul. Tom nearly went mad in 
that thraldom which he could not break till he could find 
and deliver up to him his stewardship, then — as man to 
man should the reckoning be between them, and out of 
Penroses would Tom Denison go, his children at his 
back, to begin the world over afresh at fifty, and in far 
worse case than when Basil had interposed to save him 
from ruin. 

But Prince Strokoff was apparently in no hurry to 
keep an appointment with Nemesis, and consequently left 
no address when he left England in company with a lady 
and her maid, a very few hours after he vanished from 
Penroses. And Jem, who was the proper person to trace 
the pair, had, after hearing Nan’s account of how she 
had been witness to the elopement, retired to the Hang- 
ingshaw, where the world left him, calling him fool and 
worse names, which he heeded not at all. 


252 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


Perhaps he was mad — inasmuch as what was clear as 
day to others, he could not see. So God in His mercy 
sometimes hides a man’s misery from him, lest looking at 
it full front, he die, but reveals it to him edge- ways, side- 
ways, in part, but never in its entirety, and so keeps ever 
a film betwixt him and his own soul. 

And of all the county only one woman grieved for 
Jem, and in spirit sat with him in his sorrow, and that 
was Lady Biddy ; the rest said that it served him right 
for marrying out of his own class, and they were angry 
too at not having closely followed the progress of the 
affair, and seen it enacted under their very eyes. It is so 
almost impossible to believe that anything of consequence 
is happening in the world, or to our acquaintance, that we 
cannot hear ! People may think so, to be sure, and So- 
and-So may suffer — perhaps he does — ^but, dear me, not 
to the same extent as if we were standing by, and assist- 
ing ! The grasshopper’s squeak in our ears is louder far 
than the roar of the battle, raging a mile away ! In 
short, the world’s affairs are of importance, or not of 
importance, solely in their relation to ourselves. We 
smile leniently when we hear that a neighbour is angry at 
being called this and that — silly fellow ! why does he 
mind ? It is all chaff, and how thin-skinned the fellow 
is ! — but it becomes a vital matter when somebody says 
something about us — then the majesty of the great “I” 
is involved, and we are touched to the very quick, for 
what we were indulgent to in others becomes a crime 
when we ourselves are accused of it. 

The next surprising incident was, that Hugon disap- 
peared. Nobody saw her go, but she took her slender 
wardrobe, and it was always suspected that Bunkulorum, 
who flattered himself that his intellectual tastes and hers 
were in common, and who also belonged, by virtue of 
his snail-surrender, to her class of Ishmael, felt for her, 
aided and abetted her, as the empty state of his money 
box — (investigated by Dinkie, who was wont to require 
assistance in his menus plaisirs ') — plainly showed, though 
being charged with the offence, Bunkulorum showed his 
wisdom by preserving that discreet silence impossible to 
be learned of the fool. 

“My husband says I never told him a lie in my life/* 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


253 


a woman once said to me, “and it’s quite true — for I 
never tell him anything. ’ ’ 

Maria, returning to fresh misfortunes, and heavily hit 
over her daughter’s disgrace, upon which, after the man- 
ner of some mothers, she was a little hard, showed more 
sympathy with Tom in his troubles than she had hitherto 
evinced, for here was a real calamity, one that she could 
see and comprehend, and I befear me, that many a salt 
tear was stitched into that beautiful needle- work in which 
Maria so conspicuously excelled, and which now became 
more comfort to her than ever. 

The Ancient Mariner, like the dear good woman that 
she was, would not desert the family in their misfortune, 
and came out in splendid style, while in the depths of 
her faithful soul was rooted the belief that Hugon was 
responsible for the catastrophe. Nan was nearly beside 
herself at the blindness that had overtaken her when she 
required clearest sight, and Maria, going back to her 
first cold instinct of repulsion towards Easter’s friend, 
blamed herself for having admitted a woman to Pen- 
roses. who was never heard to speak of home or people 
She could not forgive Easter, but it hurt her when Mr. 
Denison called down curses on the jade’s head, who had 
first deceived her father, then her husband, and brought 
shame upon them all under circumstances that made that 
shame doubly difficult to bear, for the price paid for his 
rehabilitation before men had been the flower of his flock 
— Easter. And he scorned and hated Burghersh, both 
for his inability to guard and keep what he had won, and 
his present pusillanimous conduct, incredible in a man of 
honour ; had it been himself he would have found and 
killed his wife’s destroyer, if he were to be found upon 
earth, but to sit down at the Shaw, and await the prodi- 
gal’s return with wide open arms, was, in Tom’s eyes, 
contemptible, and the very height of bathos. 

Meanwhile, his place in church stood empty, but Maria, 
with true womanly courage, took the children with her, 
and worshipped as before — only she put her pink and 
peach cr^pe bonnets away, and with them much of her 
matronly beauty and content 

The news of Basil’s escapade reached Town almost as 

quickly as he did, for a local gossip wired the news to 
22 


254 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


Billy, who forthwith started off to Lala, delighted — for all 
his good nature — as most people are, to be the bearer of 
ill news. 

He found that Pioneer-product of the twentieth cen- 
tury at home, and when he told her, she looked up at 
him with the serene, dauntless look that had cowed so 
many enemies, and carried her triumphantly over so 
many tight places, and smiled, and said, — 

Fool!'' 

Only when Billy had gone away, her face changed, 
and her lips quivered convulsively, for the one vulnerable 
spot in her heart, the one thing she valued, even above 
her position, was — Basil. 

And she hated Easter, for Easter had beaten her, and 
the attraction must have been extraordinarily powerful to 
make Basil commit this, the most suicidal folly of which 
he had ever been guilty. 

It would not last — there was not enough of the devil 
in Mrs. Burghersh for Basil. And then Lala ordered her 
carriage, and drove down to see Princess Strokoff at 
Fairmile. 

That lady’s house looked a glass palace to a cursory 
observer, so vast was its winter garden that, kept always 
at one temperature, filled with exotics, and made livable 
by every circumstance of luxury, partly fulfilled her Rus- 
sian husband’s idea of what was bearable in this land of 
exile. Absorbed in his country and its wrongs, with the 
morne character and fatalistic tendencies of his race, he 
lived in a world entirely unshared by his English wife, 
who was not aware how thoroughly their son, beneath 
the careless garb of an idle man of fashion, shared in his 
father’s ambitions and desires, and for all his English ex- 
terior, was a Russian to the very core of his heart. 

His mother had no influence over him, and did not 
desire any ; had his beauty belonged to a girl, she would 
have loved and decked it gloriously, for the light of her 
eyes, her soul, was chiffons^ and she had been heard to 
say that she liked being a woman, to be able to wear nice 
clothes. Now, my opinion is, that being a woman might 
be bearable if it were not for the clothes ; but no doubt 
this is purely a matter of taste, and Princess Strokoff was 
emphatically a woman who held the former opinion, and 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


2j5 


was, so to speak, held up and ruled by her habiliments, 
and could never be an entirely unhappy creature so longf 
as sables held their colour and warmth, lace its cobwebby 
texture, fine linen its silken softness, and while she was 
dressed by the right people in the right way. Upon all 
such matters she brought to bear a matchless taste and 
genius for form and colour that entirely absorbed the 
little brain she possessed, and with astonishingly good 
results, so far as the pleasure she gave herself and others 
was concerned. So that after all she had her uses, and 
was admirable, inasmuch as anyone is worthy of our 
gratitude who contributes his mite to the grace and 
beauty in the world. 

And, meanwhile, in Basil’s reckless, wayward, bril- 
liant life, was clearly to be seen the result of his home 
training. For O ! mothers, a child is what you make 
him ; he must grow up with you, step by step ; he is any- 
body’s child just as much as yours, if you let his precious 
youngest years slip away from you, and it is too late 
when you snatch at him, crying out, * ‘ Love me — you 
are my child !” and only a pitifiil silence answers you, 
for the love is not there — you have omitted to sow the 
seed of it. 

Lala found the Princess in that winter garden that was 
also a spring and summer one, breathing with pleasure 
the soft flower-scented air that was a necessity of her ex- 
istence, and at the same time performing the whole duty 
of woman if that duty lay in delighting the eyes of the 
beholder. 

She languidly opened her eyes, blue like Basil’s, when 
Lala came in, and asked that lady how she liked her new 
pug, with the ugliest, prettiest, little black and white face 
m the world, just as if they had met yesterday, instead 
of a year or so ago. 

Lu Lu turned up her delightful little Japanese face to 
listen for the reply with an air of ndiveU that would be 
simply delicious in a woman, and if found in the ladies of 
Lu Lu’s country, possibly accounts for the extraordinary 
fascination exercised by Japanese ladies over English 
male minds. 

“ They call them Sleeve-dogs,” went on the Princess, 
plaintively, “but that’s a mere trope — a mere figure of 


256 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


speech, and calculated to mislead one — anything and 
everything will go up a Chinaman’s sleeve, you know, 
and Lu Lu is so very little !” 

Lala discussed the beauty’s points, and thought of 
Basil, who was so much less to his mother than the least 
of her long line of lap-dogs had ever been, then enquired 
for him, but found, as she expected, that his mother knew 
nothing of his whereabouts, and had not even heard of 
his latest diversion, whereupon Lala, with bistre marks 
under her grey eyes, and attired a quatre ^pingles as 
usual, told her, without comment, what had happened. 

The Princess raised her eyebrows, delicate like Basil’s, 
and smiled a little, with lips also delicate, and also like 
her son’s. 

“ Such an inconvenient time of year,” she said, ‘‘and 
he will miss all the best race meetings — a thing I never 
knew him do before. But I think I remember the girl. 
I haven’t seen so much of him for years as I did last year 
— ^when he actually used to go to church that he might 
sit and look at her. I saw her once — quite a slip of a 
schoolgirl, with marvellous colouring, so vivid, yet so 
delicate — quite unique. Something like a cluster of 
exotics, you know — with a background of black velvet. 
He cooled off latterly, and I thought the matter at an 
end. I concluded she had been too eager, for that was 
Basil’s way, what he could have easily, he would not 
take ; as a child we always, gave him everything he 
wanted, because if we did not, he would go through fire 
and water to get it for himself. But his father and I have 
been really vexed with him lately — for we heard through 
our agents that he has been seriously impoverishing him- 
self — he is rich, of course ; he has all his uncle’s money, 
you know, but fifty or sixty thousand pounds is a large 
sum to get rid of all at once— and he refused point blank 
to tell us where it had gone. Some lemon in your tea ?” 

Lala declined lemon, and the Princess, smoothing a fold 
of her grey velvet gown, continued to discourse of Basil. 

‘‘I wish he had been a girl,” she said, plaintively. 
“ He is not much of a comfort. I’m sure he can’t com- 
plain of the father I chose for him, as far as looks go — 
Strokoff was the handsomest man about the court at St. 
Petersburgh when I married him— and how was I to know 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


257 


he was going to turn out a Nihilist, and be exiled, and all 
the rest of it ? It was at a ball at the White Palace I met 

him first, and I wore ’ ’ and the Princess slid off into 

recollections. “But I do hope Basil does not mean to 
take up with his father’s nonsense — if the peasants would 
only keep clear of the kabdk, and not turn themselves into 
vodka bottles, they would not be poor and miserable — the 
State would suffer of course, but they would be all right.” 

Lala laughed. When her mouth curled up and her 
grey eyes shone, she was enchantingly lovely, and the 
Princess looked at her approvingly. 

“ I don’t think you need — care,” she said. 

“ No,’^ said Lala. “ Basil is just a man, neither better 
nor worse. But it was stupid of him not to leave orders 
about his team; they’re splendid brutes, and they’ve 
scarcely been seen at a single meet this season.” 

“ And I never go on a coach,” murmured the Prin- 
cess ; “so unbecoming, you know — Venus herself would 
look a fright if perched at such a height. But why don’t 
you use it ? No one would know the coach without you 
on the box-seat. And Basil’s disposition being what it is, 
I should say he will be back for the Derby — certainly for 

the Derby. If the — affair lasts till Ascot ” she 

paused, feeling her imagination unequal to the occasion. 

“What a delightful gown you have on,” said Lala, 
rising to go. “Mason? You will never do better. 
Good-bye. Beaux regards to the Prince.” 

“ Let me know if you hear from Basil,” said the Prin- 
cess. ‘ ‘ Good-bye. After all, I think your woman could 
give points to Mason . . . there is genius in that sleeve, 
and the woman who can cut a sleeve,” and a tinge of 
colour came into her cheek, and she spoke with the 
solemnity befitting the theme, “you may trust blindfold.” 

It was the dernier mot. She sank back among her 
silken cushions, and closed her eyes, but was not destined 
to muse long on the perfections of Lala’s sleeves, which 
ought surely to have kept Basil out of mischief— if any- 
thing could, for from the garden entrance a woman, wild- 
eyed, travel-stained, and terrible, made her way into that 
Paradise of perfume and soft living, and told the Princess 
some cruel truths. 

“ Your son has gone away with another man’s wife,” 
r 22 * 


A MAN OF TO’DAY, 


258 

said this woman, fierce as a lioness robbed of her whelps, 
“and I helped him. I loved her husband, and now I 
would give my life blood, my soul hereafter, to give her 
back to him. He would rather have her ruined, dis- 
graced, than any other woman pure. I must find her — be- 
cause he is waiting for her, and if he waits too long, he will 
go mad. You bore Basil — you are his mother, and being 
a woman must help a fellow-woman — you shall. Give 
me money — give it to me, I say, or I will kill you with 
these hands — ’ ’ and she spread them out bare and scarred 
before the terrified Princess, ‘ ‘ these hands that have 
already strangled one man, and can as easily strangle you. ’ ’ 

The Princess looked, read murder in those eyes, 
quailed, and rose to do the criminal’s bidding. No bell 
was within reach, the servants were at a distance, and in 
the depths of her shallow soul she knew that the stern 
demand was just, that her son had sinned, and that some 
one must pay the forfeit. 

She sighed as she took from her escritoire a bundle of 
notes, they had been intended for her dressmaker, and 
Basil’s sin assumed glaring colours as she viewed it 
through the glasses of a disappointed, and justly-incensed 
tradeswoman. 

Hugon counted the notes swiftly, they amounted to 
just two hundred pounds. 

“If I want more,’’ she said, “ I will come back,” and 
with that comforting assurance, disappeared by the way 
she had entered, a door opening from the garden. 

Lala sat very erect behind her black horses going back 
to Town, and on arriving there, bade the coachman drive 
to Prince Strokoff’s rooms in Piccadilly. Her own ser- 
vants, who knew, exchanged glances, but Basil’s valet, 
who had brought him up in the way that masters should 
go, stepped to the carriage with a perfectly expressionless 
fece, and announced that the Prince had certainly arrived 
in Town that forenoon, but left again for Paris almost im- 
mediately after. 

“Alone?” said Lala, in a low tone, and with her most 
commanding glance. 

The man remained silent, but looked at her in a way 
that she understood. 

She nodded, and gave the order to drive home. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


259 


CHAPTER XLI. 

“ Hopes are among the living — the dead are beyond hope.” — The- 
ocritus. 

It was long before Nan even partially recovered from 
the horror of that night in which she had seen the ab- 
duction of her sister by Basil Strokoff. When she sped 
out of the gates in pursuit of the dog-cart, dropping her 
shoe as she went, and crying out wildly upon Easter to 
return, she had followed it as long as possible, and once 
felt sure she heard Easter calling back to her, and Basil 
speaking in angry tones, but soon the sound of wheels 
grew fainter, and when at last she reached the railway 
station for which she had instinctively felt they were 
bound, the yard was empty, the place all shut up, and 
she knew how slight was her chance of overtaking them 
now. 

The rest of that night’s adventures were such as she 
was never able thoroughly to recall, but the heroic little 
figure, half-clad, with one shoe off and one on, struggling 
through the pitch darkness across country with a dogged 
resolution to save Easter that conquered all difficulties of 
time and place, and terror of tramps, turned up at day- 
break many miles away, at a railway station not far from 
Fitzwalters, and which had indeed been erected for the 
special benefit of Bill and his lively friends on their 
journeyings to and from Town. 

It was Rufus himself who announced to her that her 
quest was ended — in ruin, and the station-master, rudely 
wakened from his slumbers, was kind to the Meg Merrilies- 
like child, whose grief was a heart-breaking thing to see 
and hear, as she made desperate enquiry as to who had 
departed during the night. 

No tickets had been issued, as it happened, nor had 
anyone been seen on the platform before the one o’clock 
express came up, but some person or persons must have 
boarded the train at the last moment, for as the rear end 
of it passed the station-master, he had banged to an open 


26 o 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


first-class carriage door, but had not time to see if any of 
the Fitz waiters people were inside it. 

And then poor Nan, footsore, had got herself home, 
in a friendly market-gardener’s cart as it afterwards trans- 
pired — and meeting Jem in the courtyard of Penroses, 
had with the quietness of absolute conviction told him 
the truth. She could not remember afterwards that he 
had said one word. Perhaps he did not. 

I am sorry to say that Dinkie came out anything but 
well in this time of trial, as most unproven male things 
do. He was selfish, of course — it is at once the privi- 
lege and glory of his sex — and one can handsomely say 
of him that he was not found wanting ; if anything, he 
exceeded his just allowance. 

The average man mizzles when trouble comes to sit 
under his roof, and it is only the unhappy married one 
who is compelled to bear his fair share, and therefore, 
according to the legend, is exempted by St. Peter from 
suffering in the next world, though how about the poor 
upper-servant wives? No such nice little arrangement 
seems to be made for them. 

Dinkie then found the domestic atmosphere so trying 
(for over and above other things, the money being Basil’s, 
Tom enjoined a savage economy in all things) that he 
was seldom seen except at meal times, thereby increasing 
Nan’s burdens, already sufficiently heavy. He was 
furious with Easter, and did not scruple to say so, while 
the thought of those flesh-pots, and other Hangingshaw 
delights from which her misconduct had cut him off, 
rankled unceasingly in his mind, which was of a greedy 
turn, as Nan in a burst of candour one day told him — 
poor Nan who dwindled and dwindled day by day till her 
face looked almost ghost-like in its tangle of red hair. 
Her idols lay broken in the dust, and she could not recon- 
struct them, or take pleasure in thinking of their beauty 
and goodness any more. She was not even of any use to 
her father, whose mood was too chafed and stormy to be 
soothed to peace by a woman-child’s tender hand. And 
it was, strangely enough, from without that the first 
gleam of consolation came, and from so altogether 
unlikely a source as Daddy Gardner. 

He came over constantly, with commiseration running 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


261 


all down his long nose, and they talked of Easter, usually 
in the wood-house, a cool and commodious spot, sacred 
to the storing of fuel and chopping of logs, in which it 
was Nan’s custom to do most of her thinking, and a great 
part of her suffering, alone. 

Sit in the warmth to feel, and in the cold to think, and 
Nan’s conclusions about the world in general, and her 
own affairs m particular, were mostly come to in this 
(^uiet and unfrequented nook — unfrequented at least in 
time of summer. 

Daddy had no hard words or blame for Easter, but 
turned purple over Basil’s name, and displayed an in- 
veterate hatred to Hugon, unusual in a man towards a 
friendless woman. Easter had done no wrong — Easter 
was the scapegoat for the pretty pair of villains’ sins, 
and gradually Nan’s soul was raised from contemplation 
of Easter in her degradation, to the sister she had known, 
and curiously fostered by Daddy, the timid hope grew 
and strengthened in her that Easter was not hopelessly 
dead to them — not hopelessly wicked after all. She did 
not know how the miracle of her rehabilitation was to be 
performed, but while with Daddy all things seemed pos- 
sible, it was only when alone that despair settled heavily 
upon her, that fathomless despair to which she had 
been a prey long before Daddy found her one day, in 
the place where so many lonely hours had been spent, 
her head laid down on the battered old blocks motionless 
and cold as ice with the exhaustion of grief. A sudden 
perception of how much suffering this young more or 
less uncared-for life had held brought smarting tears to 
Daddy’s eyes, and he half stretched out his hand to stroke 
that ruddy ffeece of falling hair — for as a wise man has 
said, it is surely more reasonable that the old should weep 
than the young, while something was fighting in him for 
speech, it wrestled with him every time he saw Nan, but 
he thrust it back now as always, and whistled. 

Then he sat down on a faggot near her, and in very 
recklessness of sympathy, as it seemed to her, began 
supposing this and that — supposing that Strokoff, being 
such a brute, persuaded Easter away — ^and that they had 
repented, or she repented, before it was too late, and he 
sent her back, having done no wrong, after all ? 


262 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


“Then she would have come here,” said Nan, the big 
freckles on her pale face standing out startlingly, ‘ ‘ but he 
wouldn’t let her go. Basil was very reckless — it was his 
great fault, ’ ’ added the child, who in spite of everything 
and everybody, perhaps because of everybody, as is the 
way with a faithful friend, loved him still. 

Daddy scrunched between his teeth some nouns and 
adjectives with which he designated Basil’s “reckless- 
ness,” then enquired of Nan if she had seen anything of 
Jem lately. 

“ Father won’t let me go to the Shaw,” replied Nan, 
sadly, “and Jem has never set foot outside his gates 
since he went home, and refuses to see anybody.” 

“I don’t understand Burgh ersh,” Daddy burst out 
presently ; “to sit down like a paralytic and never attempt 
to find her — or kill that beast — it’s very beautiful and holy, 
and whatever you like to call it, this sweet forgiveness, 
but if /were the woman run away with, I should be dis- 
gusted at my loss being taken in so Christian-like a spirit 
— and if I were the man. I’d murder the other one — or 
try to.” 

“ He is sure that she will come home some day,” said 
Nan, ‘ ‘ and he is afraid to go away lest there should be 
no one to welcome her when she does come. O ! 
Daddy, ’ ’ the child burst out, with tears in her voice, ‘ ‘ he 
trusts her more than you or I do !” 

“He is a fool,” growled Daddy, “if he had scoured 
the place — ” he stopped abruptly — “the world I mean, 
he must have found her by this. Easter isn’t the sort to 
come whining to his gate like a beggar woman and cry- 
ing, Peccavi !’ Your father can’t and Burghersh won’t 
spend any money over the matter — a smart detective 
would have tracked out the whole thing ages ago — ^and 
cleared it all up. ’ ’ 

For it was a long time ago as human suffering goes, 
late spring had given away to summer, and Penroses 
was a feast of roses now ; you could smell them through 
the open wood-house door, and the lusty summer song 
of countless birds mingled with their sad talk, and some- 
times almost drowned it. 

“Try and think it may all come right,” said Daddy 
finally when he went away, leaving Nan to mourn over 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


263 


something’ more real than the ugliness and unlovedness 
over which she had wept so often here, for with Daddy’s 
departure the sun had gone in, and she could not see 
how wrong could become right, or her idols be made 
whole and glorious to her again. 

Daddy was always impressing upon her that nothing 
IS irreparable but death — but had she thus lost both her 
dear ones she thought she could have borne it better 
than this. ‘ ‘ Where the light is brightest, the shadows 
are deepest,” and the shadows were at their very deepest 
about Nan then. 

Late that night, Tom, turning impatiently from to- 
bacco, lifted a corner of the Green-room blind, and looked 
out into the night. 

Something crossed the lawn — ^hovered like a wounded 
thing in the distance, then faded away. 

‘ ‘ What was that ?’ ’ cried the poor father, with beating 
pulses, and dashed out in pursuit, but ghost, or shadow, 
or suffering human thing, whatever it might be, he could 
not find it — it was gone, but left its trace in startled 
nerves, and a desperate tug at his heart-strings, as of 
some trouble close akin, and in very flesh and blood 
allied to his, behind it. 


264 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


CHAPTER XLII. 

“ How sickening, how dark the dreadful leisure 
Of weary days, made deeper exquisite. 

By a foreknowledge of unslumbrous nights , . . 

And a whole world of lingering moments crept 
Sluggishly by.” 

Jem stood gazing abroad at his kingdom which just 
then seemed intent, not on hanging its shaws (as its 
name signified), but on burying them. 

The spirit of decay moved abroad unquietly, spotting 
the broad leaves of the sycamore, lightening the heavy 
oak boughs of their acorns, dimming the shining rind of 
the “lady of the woods,” and turning her leaves to taw- 
niest gold and amber ; while the flowers that she suffered 
yet to scentless spring were with scarcely an exception 
yellow, after the fashion of Nature, who has ever the right 
colours to suit her on every possible occasion. Yellow, 
too, were the pale leaves of the elm, now trembling un- 
certainly to the ground as if doubtful of their reception, 
and loath to leave the bough where — through the long, 
happy summer, each has been suffered to 

“ Dance as often as dance it can.” 

Ruddy were the bramble leaves that clasped hands 
with the festoons of briony, linking together the thickets 
of underwood broken here and there with patches of 
golden-blossomed furze, and yet more fragrant buck- 
wheat, whose pungent odour recalls that of birch-trees 
in the dew of a spring early morning, but a cold mist was 
stealing over and blotting out all, and Jem shivered as he 
stooped to pick a bit of heath flower which he .stuck in 
his coat, shifting his gun from one arm to another as he 
did so. He was never seen abroad without this gun, 
which was his faithful companion when he tramped mile 
after mile of country, till he could tramp no more, having 
in a measure transferred the pain of mind to his muscles, 
and so ensured that lethargy of fatigue a miserable human 
being falsely misnames rest. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


265 


It was well for him in ^these days that he brought a 
right heart to Nature, or*she could not have comforted 
him as she did, for it is in the heart of the man himself 
that true communion with her is established, and that she 
proves herself warm friend, or harsh stepmother. And 
to Jem, the wailing of the autumn breeze through the 
pale woodlands blended like a soothing voice with his 
desolation, and a feeling of comradeship with the lonely 
stone-chat who swings and swings in the topmost bough 
in the wind on the hill; the earth-scents that rose as 
grateful incense to his nostrils, yea, the clouds, those 
heavenly fleets ever hurrying on to a shore whose glories 
we cannot see, but of which they know, heartened and 
strengthened him to bear the agony that had been put 
upon him. 

“For they can conquer who believe they can,” and 
Jem, in those long months of endless days and nights, 
found that there are strong uses and blessings, too, in 
sorrow, that to live with it — talk with it — sleep with it, to 
have no human being to whom you can transfer even a 
smallest portion of it — to rise above the wave, instead of 
being engulphed by it, means the finest discipline it is 
possible for a man to live through ; and it is in such fiery 
trials as these that the real grit comes out, and the man 
himself is proven. 

With Endymion might he well have said, — 

“ To sorrow 
I bade good-morrow, 

And thought to leave her far away behind ; 

But cheerly, cheerly, 

She loves me dearly, 

She is so constant to me and so kind ; 

I would deceive her, 

And so leave her, 

But ah ! she is so constant and so kind.” 

Open-eyed, conscious, with no human company to 
distract him, no excess to deaden, or anodyne to subtract 
one hour of waking pain, that man must be a strong one 
who holds fast to life and reason through so prolonged a 
crucifixion, and if Jem so far came out of it sane and 
alive, there were yet such signs and marks upon him as 
he would carry with him to his dying day. 

M 23 


266 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


He looked, spoke, and moved much as before, but the 
spontaneity of life — the healthy glow and stir of blood in 
his veins, that give life and character to a man, had be- 
come frozen, and his complexion, for all his out-door 
existence, had become of the hue of parchment, while 
his shooting clothes hung upon his broad shoulders in 
sacks. The whole identity had withered outwardly, and 
yet, look at him which way you would, Jem was a man. 
If you had seen him among others — all dressed pretty 
much alike — he would not have taken precedence of any, 
for till the opportunity for testing his quality comes, you 
can’t tell how any one of them will come off — but when 
the time for action does arrive, the real man or the 
tailor’s dummy reveals himself, proved in action. And 
perhaps if Jem had known the height, and breadth, and 
depth of this calamity, with which he had set himself 
down to dwell, he would have turned, doubting and 
sickening, from the task, but what he had begun in 
something akin to madness he continued by sheer daily 
and hourly struggle to carry through, and even as the 
back is made for the burden, so must God’s most awful 
decrees be carried out by us without fainting, or ever 
seeking to elude them. 

Easter had gone away, but she would come back. To 
go and look for her meant that when she did return to 
the one faithful heart in the whole world that beat for 
her, she would mourn and believe herself cast off, per- 
haps shrink away to die, and he would run no such risks. 
Of her, Jem thought always as one without sin, but as 
an abstract Easter, not the wife who had dwelled beside 
him — rested in his arms— and who, in her own wayward 
fashion, had surely loved him. 

If he had ever thought of her as a woman — ^loving, 
weeping, praying, sinning — his calm would have been 
shattered, and he at the mercy of his passions, but as a 
woman he never did think of her now, while of Basil — 
from him he was able by sheer force of will to force his 
thoughts away, and, superhuman struggle though it was, 
he came off as a rule, victor. 

When he could control himself no longer — when there 
threatened to rise in him that awful lust to destroy her 
destroyer, that he must never suffer to get beyond him. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


267 


Jem would rise up, and whether by night or day, cover 
league upon league, never drawing breath until he 
dropped half dead upon the ground, and the devil for 
the time being, scourged out of him. 

So many hours to tramp — so many hours to concen- 
trate on books hard of digestion — so many hours devoted 
to matters connected with his estate, which he managed 
himself — a brief allowance of time for food, and then the 
slumber of exhaustion. Thus was his time parcelled out 
— thus did he fence himself from the demons of memory 
ever on his track. 

The seasons mattered nothing, only like poor other 
humans, he felt his cross burn into him more deeply on 
fair days than on foul ones, and he would shut his eyes to 
the beauty he might not share with her he loved . . . 
thus they fought it out alone together, God and he — God 
to smite the blow, he to bear it, with nothing in earth or 
heaven to come between they two. Only, this afternoon, 
as he tramped through the long grass and dead fern, that 
clung round his ankles chillingly, coming at last to that 
glade that he never failed to visit once within each twenty- 
four hours, something, that was not hope, nor prescience, 
nor the dead peace of a worn-out spirit, but an intuition, 
life-giving and awakening, even as the wind that kindles 
with its breath all the fire and beauty of earth, came to 
him suddenly, so that standing still in the sodden wood, 
he suddenly threw back his shoulders as if a great weight 
had slipped from them, and baring his head, thanked 
God for he knew not what, only sure that somewhere — 
somehow, some good had come to him, and it must con- 
cern her he loved, and surely he would know it soon. 
He looked eagerly to right and left, as if he expected to 
see her stealing towards him through the silvery mist that 
now had risen about him, a gauze-like veil that a wizard 
might have woven to hide from him those joys that might 
kill him peradventure, did they reveal themselves too 
suddenly to his ken . . . and so, with gun resting on 
the ground, each nerve and muscle strained to utmost 
tension, he stood, waiting — feeling only the hammering 
of his pulses and heart, sure as one is sure of death — of 
life — that Easter, or news of her, was close at hand, and 
that the long months of his dreadful vigil were over. 


268 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


For so it is, that one day God says, ‘‘It is enough. 
This man has gone through all he is able to bear ; he has 
borne it well. I will set him back again in the sun- 
shine,” and He wipes out the long agony, almost even 
the memory of it, as if it had never been, though through 
that anguish the man has been made stable. 

Jem had felt it coming ... it was there . . . and who 
but she should seek him in this spot ? and sight and con- 
sciousness nearly left him, when a woman’s shape loomed 
through that silver mist, and approached him ... a 
moment only he saw it, then every instinct in his body 
told him that this was not Easter, and covering his face 
from sight of any other woman or thing, a groan of 
baulked longing burst from his heart, before which the 
figure fell away, becoming a mere dumb outline among 
the ghostly, dripping trees. 

There came to him a low sound of weeping ... of 
weeping . . . how dared this strange woman weep for 
herf ... a murderous impulse to point his gun at that 
contemptible, insignificant blur on the whiteness yonder, 
and wipe it out, shook him like a reed, and hunger, mad 
and clamorous for her he loved, tore at his heart like a 
vulture ; his God had promised, then mocked him of His 
promise . . . and his cry rang out, Easter ! Easter I' ^ 
voicing all the martyrdom of the past silent nights and 
days, and making the woman who heard it shudder, for 
was not this devil’s work her own ? 

“Easter has sent you a message,” said a voice that 
trembled out of the mist, and Jem, striding forward, 
seized Hugon by the shoulders, and shook her violently, 
not knowing what he did. ‘ ‘ Where is she ?’ ’ he shouted. 

“She is safe,” said Hugon; then when he realised 
what he was doing and had let her go — “and well,” she 
added with a gasp. “So she bade me tell you.” 

“Thank God ! Thank God !” 

He bared his head, looking upwards through the sod- 
den leaves, all his torture forgotten, with the pathetic 
forgiveness of the beaten human child to its inscrutable 
Great Father. A little colour had come into his withered 
face, he was alive, and tasted the joy of living once more, 
the blood in his veins stirred, and the long midnight of 
his solitude was past. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


269 


“ Take me to her,” and he seized Hugon’s arm, and 
hurried her through the copse towards the house at such 
speed that she stumbled and almost fell over the uneven 
ground. 

‘‘You ask no questions,” said Hugon, her face showing 
spirit-like through the wreathing vapours. ‘ ‘ How do 
you know that she is not with him f ’ 

‘‘ She would have sent me no message then,” he said, 
“and you” — he stopped to look at her, remembering 
what she really was — “you are a better woman than 
when I saw you last, or you would not bring it.” 

She looked pitifully up at him, and her mouth trembled. 
They were out of the wood now, and moving on level 
ground, and their faces were quite clear to one another, 
and there was death in hers, but he did not see it. 

“Jem,” she said, “before I tell you any more, will 
you tell me that you forgive me for all the wrong I have 
ever done you — and her ?’ ’ 

Jem shook his head. 

“I’ve thought a good deal about it,” he said ; “I’ve 
had plenty of time for thinking, you know, this last six 
months, and I believe you led my poor little girl away 
between you — you and that scoundrel — and that for 
everything she has suffered, you are responsible. When 
you can prove to me that it isn’t so. I’ll forgive you, and 
not before.” 

They had come in sight of the Hangingshaw by now, 
the mists were rolling themselves grandly away up the 
cliff side, and in the red gleam of the autumn sun, the 
many windows of the house shone like beacon-fires, kin- 
dled as in welcome. 

“She is not there,” said Hugon, answering the de- 
vouring glance with which he swept the place, as if, hold- 
ing her, it must shout out aloud its joy to the whole 
world. 

“ Where is she?” said Jem, stopping short and going 
white as ashes. 

‘ ‘ I can take you to her within an hour. ’ ’ 

He turned giddy, and leaned against the lintel of the 
door they were just entering, and she thought he would 
have fallen, but he recovered almost immediately, and 
they passed into the house through the drawing-rooms, 
23* 


270 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


where everything was just as when Easter occupied them, 
flowers bloomed in the jardinieres^ her work-box with its 
golden thimble beside it stood open by her favourite 
chair, drawn to the fire, no alteration or neglect of any 
kind was visible in any part of the place. 

“ My wife has gone away,” he said to the housekeeper 
on the occasion of her bringing to him the key of Easter’s 
jewel safe, and wardrobes. “When she comes back 
I wish her to find everything just as she left it,” and that 
was the first and last time he ever spoke on the subject 
of his wife to any person of his household, or out of it. 

The same hours were kept, the same rooms prepared, 
the only difference being that when in the house he 
habitually used his study, as the table piled with dry-as- 
dust books abundantly testified. No flowers were here, 
but Easter’s portrait, enlarged from an old photograph, 
taken when she was sixteen, was placed where it must 
always catch his eye, and every gleam of sunshine that 
entered. 

“Good morrow to thee, my darling,” he murmured 
tenderly to it now as he came in. “I never pass her 
without speaking,” he added abruptly to Hugon, “night 
and morning, and often between, I talk to my little girl, 
and she smiles back at me — don’t you see her smiling 
now?” And indeed the girlish face seemed to answer 
him with its innocently gay mirth. 

But Hugon had bowed her head, and was weeping 
those tears — tears of repentance — ^that are the most grate- 
ful tribute to God that a human soul can offer. 

Jem’s face changed and an unutterable dread swept 
across it. 

‘ ‘ Y ou’ re not hiding anything from me, ’ ’ he said. ‘ ‘ She 
is not ill — dying ?’ ’ 

Hugon looked up, her face touched with that greater 
glory which is not of earth, and which only those within 
measurable distance of the hills of heaven ever wear. 

“All is well with Easter,” she said, then below her 
breath, “and with you. She must tell you herself . . . 
come.” 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


271 


CHAPTER XLIII. 

“If the medicine of the imagination is the most efficient, why 
should we not make use of it?” — D eslou. 

Daddy that same afternoon tore into the wood-house, 
now very cold, not to say mildewy in its melancholy, 
snatched up Nan, who was writing poetry on the much- 
scarred block of wood to which so many cheerful logs 
had fallen, and careered with her round and round the 
place, at the same time uttering whoops that might have 
alarmed a person who did not recognise them for what 
they were — manifestations of the purest and most irre- 
pressible joy. 

Easter shrieked out Nan, wildly excited, when at 
last he set her down, and “ Easter it is !” he responded, 
in ecstasy, then, without pausing to take breath, began 
to dance a jig like one possessed. 

“Dance !“ he cried, “dance ! O ! you’ll dance now 
for the rest of your days ! No more sackcloth and ashes 
— no more howls and red noses — don’t ask me to ex- 
plain, only dance, shriek, rejoice ! I’ve got good news, 
splendid news, rare news, and I must let off some of the 
steam a bit, or I shall burst !’ ’ 

And Nan danced — for it was one of her doubtful accom- 
plishments that she could dance a jig — with all her heart, 
and soul, and body, and with eyes alight and arms akimbo 
did a double shuffle in such style as quite to cut out 
Daddy’s performance, whooped twice to his once, display- 
ing a perfect genius for savage and warlike yells that he 
toiled after in vain, and found herself dancing on her own 
cherished poetry, rhyming from top to bottom with death 
and sorrow, shame and blame, and danced on it all the 
harder ; then when she had to stop because her stockings 
had come down altogether, and enveloped her shoes, 
wound up by rushing into Daddy’s arms, where they 
rocked to and fro, patting each other’s backs encour^ 
agingly, and inarticulately gurgling out new forms of satis- 


272 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


faction as they tried to recover their breath, and impart 
and receive information at the same moment. 

“ I don’t know what it’s all about, but I know it’s all 
right,” said Nan, just as Dinkie’s chilly voice was heard 
enquiring if this were Pandemonium let loose, or had his 
refined and accomplished sister at last gone off her 
blooming chump? 

“Stow that,” growled Daddy, still out of breath, “and 
run and get your hat. Nan — you’ve got to go somewhere 
with me — yon know who it is to see — directly. The dog- 
cart’ s waiting outside the kitchen garden.” 

Nan jumped clean up into the air — I should be sorry 
to say how many feet she jumped — but I am sure she 
could never do it again as long as she lived — and gave 
one final whoop of such surprising power and intensity 
as to nearly crack Dinkie’s ears, and scatter all the fowls 
in the near neighbourhood, tore once round the circum- 
scribed limits of the wood-house with headlong joy, and 
vanished. 

“What is it all about?” said Dinkie, who, to use one 
of his own expressions, was never so unterconstumbled 
in his life. 

“O ! you’ll hear in good time,” said Daddy, who by 
no means approved of Dinkie’s eternal selfishness to 
Nan, and when she herself appeared in a jiffy, hav- 
ing covered herself with a long cloak that trailed the 
ground, and capped it with an extremely dirty sun-bon- 
net, Dinkie could not get anything out of her either, 
though her manner of snubbing him raised an agony of 
curiosity in his breast. 

“You haven’t been a bit nice about Easter, Dinkie,” 
she said, draping the Ancient Mariner’s old cloak in toga 
fashion about her, and feeling indeed that it was a suit- 
able garment in which to administer rebuke to her elders ; 
“ it wasn’t her you missed or cared about — or felt sorry 
for — but the tuck-outs and tips and things — for you al- 
ways were a greedy, and now you know it.” 

Having touched her mentor up on this his sorest point, 
it was a pity that in turning away with uncommon dignity 
to make a stately exit. Nan should have been tripped up 
by the folds of her cloak in such wise as to precipitate her 
head first into Dinkie’s stomach, and being thence ejected 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


273 

with great vigour and promptitude, rebounded on to the 
adjacent pile of faggots, out of which (being swathed like 
a mummy in its wrappings) Daddy presently, and with 
much laughter, fished her. 

It cannot be denied that this accident somewhat mod- 
erated Nan’s overflowing spirits and even affected her 
manners, for it is a fact that when she was readjusted, 
and Dinkie spitefully drew her attention to what he called 
her ‘ ‘ rotten effusions’ ’ on the ground, she deliberately 
said, Blow it!” and walked out with a stately swag- 
ger. 

But when Daddy had tucked her into the dog-cart that 
was lying perdu in a convenient spot (Dinkie loftily view- 
ing the proceedings from a distance) and had taken his 
place beside her, it was a subdued Nan, all her wild tu- 
mult of joy over, who looked up eagerly into Daddy’s 
face. 

‘ ‘ What did I always tell you ?’ ’ he said with the air of 
an earthly Providence as they turned off the grass into 
one of the cart-ways that led from Penroses to the town ; 
“that if you’d only keep up your pecker, things might 
come right in the end ? Well, they have come right — 
everything’s come right — even that Satan in petticoats, 
Hugon, ain’t so bad after all — and we’re just going to 
have a good time all round, and more especially Jem 
Burghersh. Not but what I blame him,” he added, a 
touch of sternness in his young face, * ‘ she had only a 
fancy for the other fellow and he should have squashed 
it, but he let him come fooling round in town, and then 
he leaves her here alone, and he has himself to thank for 
everything — for if a man can’t look after his own wife, 
who will? But he’s had a pretty rough time of it — poor 
chap — he must be there by now,” and Daddy looked at 
his watch ; “by Jove, that Shaker business of ours took 
longer than I thought, ’ ’ and he put his pony along at a 
great pace. 

“Where are we going?” cried Nan, as they left the 
town behind, and the trees and hedgerows spun past ; 
‘ ‘ this is the way to Minsterton 1’ ’ 

“And to Minsterton we’re going,” said Daddy, with 
a grin that pastured on his nose and mouth indefi- 
nitely. “ O ! you won’t think me such a fool when 


274 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


you know all the ins and outs of everything ! But I’m 
not going to tell you anything — not till you’ve seen 
her — so it’s no good trying your blandishments upon 
me.^' 

“Jem,” said Nan, in a trembling voice almost lost in 
the depths of a turned-away sun-bonnet, ‘ ‘ where is . . . 
her' 

Poor Nan had heard her sister called by many a 
straight and brutal name during these past months, and 
if such terms of shame had not been applied to Basil 
also, it was because, though a man may and does sin 
often, there is no such word as shame for him in the 
vocabulary. 

“Well,” said Daddy, cheerfully, “she is not alone, if 
you must know, and most extraordinarily attached to 
that person she is, in fact won’ t let him out of her sight, 
though /can’t see anything in him myself ” 

He stopped, frightened at the silence inside the sun- 
bonnet, and peeping inside, saw Nan’s small face at the 
other end, drowned in tears. 

“It’s a blackguardly shame,” he exclaimed, greatly 
moved, “dear, dear little Nan, you’re all wrong — do 
you think I should take you there if — if — but here 
we are,” and he drove smartly in at the gates of his 
home. 

Minsterton was barely a half mile out of the town, but 
it might have been a hundred away from the clash of the 
machinery, the loud voices of the factory hands, and the 
more or less bustling life of Rokehorn, upon which it 
turned its back, and, lying at some distance from the 
highway, was approached by a privet-bordered road that 
led only to the Manor House, the churchyard, and, close 
beside the latter, Minsterton itself. 

Side by side stood the little gate which gave entrance 
to a paved walk, sentinelled with giant yews, to the 
bigger one that led through a short shrubbery to a 
square gravelled court upon which looked picturesque 
stables, their high, narrow windows framed in now scarlet 
Virginia creepers, to a long, low, many-windowed house, 
magnolia-leaved, and in summer starred with heavy fra- 
grant cups, while on the third side the back of a grey 
church with its dead nestled itself lovingly in close to 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


275 


the living, with only a high laurel hedge to divide 
them. 

Unutterably peaceful was the atmosphere of the whole 
place, more especially on the south side, where from the 
sunny verandah, about whose twisted pilasters in summer 
roses clung, one looked over lawn and park-like field 
that merged themselves imperceptibly into swelling hills, 
crowned in one place by ancient cedars that looked down 
on a green altar where many sacrifices were said to have 
been consummated, and to which, from time immemorial, 
had been given the name of Baals. 

The little church at the side, the old-world air of it 
all, the struggle of life going on out of sight, out of ear- 
shot, made one feel instinctively that here might either 
the very young or the very old find happiness indeed, 
and tears came into Nan’s eyes at its beauty, for she 
knew that inside that porch-like door she would find 
Easter. 

“Daddy,” she cried, breathlessly, a sudden light 
breaking in on her, ‘ ‘ you have known it all along . . . 
that was why you tried to comfort me . . . she has 
been here . . . almost at our very, gates . . . and 
you never told me . . . O ! it was cruel, cruel of 
you !’ ’ 

“Couldn’t,” said Daddy, briefly. “You’d have told 
Dinkie, and he’d have told Jem — there’s only one way 
of ensuring your neighbour holding his tongue, and that 
is by holding your own. I see by the way the gravel’s 
cut up he is here already, and I’d given my oath not to 
speak, so had mother. But ticklish work it was when 
I was with you, I promise you,” added Daddy, as he 
beckoned a distant gardener, and got out, helping down 
Nan, who, between the awkwardness of her cloak and 
the trembling of her limbs, was an uncertain quantity to 
lay hold of. 

They met no one as they crossed the quiet old hall, 
with its low window seat full of those flowers that seem 
always to bloom best without air and behind glass, but 
they saw in the distance a stout, matronly person in a 
cotton gown who brought some vague reminiscences to 
Nan’s mind. Surely she had seen some such person not 
Qnce, but many times, at Penroses. 


276 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


‘ ‘ Why are you taking me upstairs ?’ ’ she cried, wildly ; 

is she ill ?” 

“No, not exactly ill. You’d better go in alone.” 
He opened a bedroom door a very little way, pushed 
Nan and her cloak inside it, then drawing a deep breath 
as he shut it behind her, listened. 

A smile broke over his face, then he winked violently 
to oet rid of some moisture in his eyes as he went down- 
stairs 

“ God ‘bless Nan I” he said. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


277 


CHAPTER XLIV. 

“ Ye who have yearned 

With too much passion, will here stay and pity 
For the mere sake of truth.” 

“What is the doctor doing here ?“ Jem had enquired, 
fiercely, half-an-hour earlier, as Hugon led him up the 
stairway, and pausing on a certain threshold had rested 
awhile with averted head, and hand pressed hard against 
her side. 

He did not see her face as she softly opened the door, 
and made a sign to him to enter, nor yet Mrs. Gardner, 
who rose on his entrance and quietly passed out ... he 
saw only with a rush of longing that winged his feet to her, 
Easter lifting herself among her pillows, ethereal, purified, 
holding out eager arms to him, and when he was within 
them, looking deep, deep into his eyes as no sinful woman 
surely ever looked at her true lover yet, and so drew his 
head down to her breast, and held it there with mur- 
mured words of blessing, of love, of prayers for forgive- 
ness. . . . 

Forgiveness ! The word stung him out of his para- 
dise. Why had she uttered it ? He moved restlessly in 
that close embrace, and kneeling beside the bed, looked 
up in agony in her face. 

“My boy,” she said, pitifully, “my poor, poor boy!” 
— then haltingly, as one afraid, passed her hand over 
the hollows in his cheeks and temples, and touched the 
deep lines she had drawn on his forehead, then pressed 
her mouth to them, lingeringly, hungrily, as if his very 
blemishes were passionately dear and beautiful in her 
eyes. And still he looked at her, not dazed, for every 
touch was healing to him, only he who had known so 
much sorrow was not fit to bear joy — till she came to his 
lips, then taking his head between her two hands, offered 
him all her sweet face and said, “Won’t you kiss me, 
dear?” 

He shivered, his breast rising and falling in quick 
24 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


278 

pants, yet with something in his eyes that pierced and 
thrilled her too, for so might look an angel who made 
question of a human soul, who might forgive indeed, but 
must and would know all the truth . . . and right across 
that unanswered question came a little cry that caused 
Jem to start up trembling, as Easter, with a glorious look 
of happiness, turned down the coverlid beside her, and 
lifted a little bundle that she first regarded with the most 
intense pride, then held out to him as if it represented all 
the treasure and loveliness of the whole world. 

“Jem,” she said — and where had she learned that 
voice of love? — “our child ...” and she laid him in 
his father’s arms. 

The thrill of that baby-touch would have given him 
back his manhood even if he had lost it, but he had not, 
and only the pure rapture of his fatherhood came to him 
then . . . there was much to know, to explain, but he 
looked from the child to his mother, from the mother to 
her child — and believed her. 

“Jem,” she said, and her voice ran on like a babbling 
brook that for very joy must babble, and knows not how 
to stop, “ he has grey eyes, just like yours, and no dimple 
in his chin like wicked me, so he is sure to grow up good 
like you — and as I mean to be, Jem, O ! as I mean to be, 
dear ! She has told you all about it, of course . . . and 
you know how bad I was, but not so bad as you thought 
. . . and it was not Hugon’s fault ; she gave me a down- 
ward push — yes — but the wickedness was here in my 
heart, and it’s all out now — but O ! it’s left a scar, Jem, 
it’s left a scar!” and she broke out into wild weeping 
that startled the babe from its slumber, and she checked 
it, that she might take him in her arms and soothe him. 

‘ ‘ But I wanted discipline and I got it — and you did not 
want it, but you got it too. And you had nobody, poor, 
proud, lonely boy, but I would not, dared not — come, 
till I had— this.” 

She drew the soft little head closer with one arm, the 
other was round Jem’s shoulders and his hidden face, as 
he kneeled beside the pair. 

“And I had Hugon . . . and we talked of you — 
dways of you — if I had not been with someone who really 
loved you, understood you, I think I should have died — 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


279 


she spoke of you from the heart, not the lips — and knew 
your goodness through and through. But, O ! it was 
hard to keep away from you ... all alone there, my 
dear, bra.ve, lonely Jem, keeping your house open for a 
poor, guilty wretch such as you thought me, to creep 
into as a refuge at last. ...” 

‘ ‘ As he thought her' ’ . . . what was it that she had 
not done, that Hugon had neglected to tell him? . . . 
Slowly he lifted his head, and looked at her, this was 
Easter, his own pure wife . . . the rest was a fable . . . 
he reached up thirstily to her lips, drawing mother and 
sleeping child into his strong arms, and asked no more. 

... It was thus that Nan found them when, trembling 
with emotion, she stole across the room — and sinking 
down beside them, burst into a passionate flood of excited 
tears that seemed as though they would never stop. 

“ Dear Nan — brave Nan,” said Easter, laying her frail 
hand on the child’s glorious fleece of hair. “ Don’t for- 
get, Jem, that it was Nan who really saved me that night 
. . . that I might have gone with him — may God for- 
give me ! — but for Nan.” 

“O ! Easter!" cried the child, in a loud, awakened 
voice, and leaping up, ‘ ‘ then you did not go with him 
after all. . . . Thank God! thank God!” and careered 
around like mad till a certain sick-room atmosphere sud- 
denly struck her, and she came soberly back to the bed 
beside which Jem was now sitting, asking himself how 
many hours ago he was tramping alone through the sod- 
den woods . . . she had not gone away with Basil at 
all .. . 

“But you have been veiy cruel, Easter,” said the 
child, reproachfully, not having seen that mystery over 
which Easter had drawn the silk coverlid, “you might 
have trusted me . . . and Jem. ...” 

For a moment Easter’s face became wan, and she fell 
back among the cushions wearily, as one all too used to 
sorrow. 

‘ ‘ Do you think I have been playing while you wept ?’ ’ 
she said. “ Ask Hugon — ask Daddy — and his mother, 
the best friend surely, a wicked girl ever had, if I did not 
grieve about you — I used to steal out after dark, and go 
round by the fields and look in at Penroses — at poor 


28 o 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


father — once he nearly caught me — O ! poor father, and 
poor mother, too . . . and I have stood under your 
window. Nan, where you think your strange thoughts 
. . . and I longed to call to you . . . but I dared not 
. . . not till baby came; I thought perhaps everybody 
might forgive me then . . . but I broke up the home, I 
tortured all your hearts — and Jem — look at the hollows 
in his face,” and she looked earnestly, pitifully, at her 
work. ‘ ‘ I can never undo it all — never, ’ ’ she added, 
with tears, as he stooped and kissed her hand as if she 
were a saint. 

” O ! the dear little thing !’ ’ screamed out Nan, start- 
ing back as the coverlid fell aside, and she saw the tiny 
creature tucked in to his mother’s side. “Is it — is it 

’ ’ then, as the wonderful truth dawned upon her, she 

fairly broke down and sobbed aloud, then hugged the 
pair of them till she woke the baby up, and entreated to 
be allowed to hold him. 

“ Isn’t he heavy?” said Easter, with sparkling eyes — 
a radiant young mother whose face now had the last and 
crowning touch to its loveliness. “It’s so funny for it 
to be so precious, considering how we grumbled at the 
babies at Penroses !” 

“/didn’t,” said Nan, indignantly, who had indeed 
nursed and dropped Maria’s babies till it was a miracle 
they all grew up without blemish, “I always loved 
them !” And she retired with her prize to a distant 
window of that large and pleasant room that overlooked 
the garden, and the swelling hills beyond. 

“And I love him most, Jem, because he is yours,” 
said Easter, as she leaned her head against his breast. 

“ Little mother !” said Jem, smoothing her dark head 
with gentle hungry hand, as if he could never satisfy 
himself with touch of her. ‘ ‘ And why was I not sent for 
sooner ?’ ’ 

“ It was all arranged, dear, that if I showed signs of 
going to a wicked place — O ! but I’ve got my punish- 
ment hereby she broke off, abruptly, with a cry of pain 
in her voice, ‘ ‘ I believe we all do if we only knew it — 
that hell is just another name for conscience, and we’re 
all punished just in the way that hurts us most. It was 
my pride, my stiff-necked pride, that had to be broken 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


28 i 


— and God broke it, Jem, broke it all into little pieces, 
and I don’t mean ever to try and put it together again ! 
Basil didn’t love me,” she added, looking steadfastly up 
at Jem. “ I must speak of him just this once to you, 
dear — and then it will be over ! That was the worst 
of it — if he had really loved me — if I had roused any 
truest part of him — but it was not me — not my heart, or 
soul, or the best that was in me — it was just a caprice he 
had been provoked into, and I hated Lala Hoyos — do 
you remember when I said it would be pull devil, pull 
baker, between us? Don’t take your hand away from 
my head, Jem . . . I’ve only had one thought, one 
desire, to creep back to the haven that once sheltered 
me, to fold my arms round your neck, and rest upon 
your strength as I always did without knowing it, to feel 
the arms of my true love round me once again.” 

He stooped down and kissed her hair . . . she was so 
grandly justifying his belief in her all the way along, and 
the constancy of her nature, bound to outlast, in the 
long run, any passing whim, was no surprise to the man 
who had loved and trusted her to the verge of folly— ay, 
to the bringing down upon him of the worTd^s huge con- 
tempt. 

For, though she had in one passive moment — a 
moment for which she could never clearly account — 
almost thrown away home, love, and character, yet, 
having done it, she had somehow found strength to stand 
up against the inevitable consequences, and her real grit 
and strength of principle had asserted itself. And even 
of her might have been written Browning’s exquisite 
lines : 

“ For you could not, sweet ! 

We might pray you, flay you, bray you 

In a mortar— but you could not, sweet." 


“Jem,” she said, wonderingly, “how does love grow ? 
It is like looking one day for strawberries, and when you 
lift the leaves only green sides are there — you look again, 
perhaps the very next day, and you find the ground 
covered with scarlet fruit, almost over-ripe . . . and there 
are more than you can eat — only I don’t love you a bit 
more than I know what to do with, dear. But if I had 

24* 


282 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


gone back to you — fresh from that awful night in which 
I was unfaithful to you — in heart, if not in deed — I should 
not have purged my sin . . . and I might have been 
grateful, but I should not have loved you then as now — 
now that you have proved yourself and your faith in me 
. . . you who have stood up, and taken the brunt of it 
all . . . but I have suffered, Jem — O ! I have suffered ! 
I loathed myself as something unclean, fit neither to live 
nor die” — she clung to him weeping — ‘‘but God and 
Hugon were good to me through it all — ^and you never 
saw a prettier, bigger baby, did you ?’ ’ 

Jem kissed the lovely transparent face, knowing that 
at last, and there was no question about it, through bit- 
terest teaching, his wife had learned that lesson of love 
at which she had been so inapt and unwilling a pupil 
always. 

‘‘They call that field over there, Baals,” she said, 
dreamily looking out through the distant window. ‘ ‘ Day 
after day I have lain here, and looked at it . . . and I 
have laid my sacrifices there too, Jem, like the Druids 
. . . and I used to ask Daddy if he were sure you would 
accept it, and he always said ‘Yes;’ you know a man 
always says something kind.” 

‘‘And he was right,” said Jem, who himself, gaunt, 
hollow-eyed, looked like some young monk fresh from 
endless days and nights of self-maceration, yet with all 
the strength and passion of a man’s nature unbroken in 
him yet, and resolute to follow a man’s life to the end. 

‘‘They have been so good to me,” she went on, 

‘ ‘ Daddy and his mother ... I could never make it 
up to them ... I can only cry over them, and love 
them all my life.” 

‘‘ Daddy is a dear,” said Nan, who, approaching with 
her precious bundle, heard the last words, and suddenly 
remembering their saltatory feats in the wood-house, 
and Dinkie’s outraged sensibilities thereat, was seized 
with a sudden fit of laughter, but in the midst of it thought 
of others not so happy as herself, and first her heart flew 
to her father, then to Hugon, the message of whose face 
had been read by her clearly enough, though in the ab- 
sorption of the interview with Easter, she had until now 
forgotten it. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


283 


“Poor Hugon looks very ill,” she said, shaking her 
head sadly, even while she thrilled with joy as the baby’s 
hand froze on to one of her thin fingers ; ‘ ‘ and did she 
come to you here^ Easter, when she ran away from Pen- 
roses ?’ ’ 

“ You’ll know it all some day. Nan,” said Easter, 
turning her ethereal white and rose face on the child. 
“It’s a long story . . . but whatever wrong she may 
have done me once, she has amply atoned for it since. 
But for her, though the Gardners were so good, I don’t 
think I could have lived through these awful six months 
— only she won’t touch my baby, Jem — our baby, I mean. 
I know she loves it, for she sits looking at him for hours 
— and it’s she who finds out all the little things in which 
he is like you — ^but she won’t take him in her arms, and 
puts them behind her if I try to make her, though the 
tears stream down her face for longing all the while.” 

Jem did not seem to be attending — but he was think- 
ing hard, as he drew his wife’s hand softly across his lips. 
Hugon would not touch the little innocent child because 
blood was on her hands . . . yet surely she had atoned 
. . . she had washed them clean in her repentance . . . 
and Easter did not know . . . never need know ... he 
thanked Hugon from his soul for having found strength 
and spared her — to God and him she had confessed her 
sin — it was enough. 

“I’ll go and fetch her,” he said, and lingeringly, as one 
who feared to put himself too far from his treasure, he left 
the room to seek her. 

Nan came over and kneeled down by her sister, and 
the two faces, curiously alike at that moment for all their 
diverseness, both illumined by an inward beauty now, 
looked long and lovingly into each other, giving question 
and answer both. 

“ Kiss me. Nan,” said Easter. “Why did you waken 
that night but to save me? For I left you fast asleep.” 

“ Why did you come to me,” said Nan, earnestly, “but 
that God sent you ? You did not mean to go away with 
him — or you would not have come to me.” 

“No,” cried Easter, in ringing tones, “I had no 
thought of going ... I was running away from him, 
not with him ... I would not trust myself to see him 


284 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


again . . . God knows how I got away from him in the 
drawing-room that night ... it was by the skin of my 
teeth . . . but I did . . . and I waited till all the house 
was asleep ... I had often harnessed Rufus before, and 
I could do it again, and go home to the Shaw, and wait 
there for Jem . . . and Basil must have been hidden in 
the house, and followed me . . . and he let me put Rufus 
in the cart . . . the lanthorn showed me, though I could 
not see him, and just as I was going to start, he stepped 
out of the darkness, and ... it all began over again. 
. . . Oh ! Nan, it was not love, not love, but a mad, bad, 
brutal passion . . . and yet he swayed, he possessed me 
. . . love had called me once, and I would not go . . . 
and now something that was not love beckoned me, and 
I was intoxicated, for the time at least he had mastered 
me ... I might have gone ... I might have gone 
. . . and then you came, and he thrust you aside, oh ! 
poor Nan ! but the thrust fell on my bare heart, and he 
leaped into the cart and drove furiously away, but I 
heard you calling, calling, long after your voice must 
have ceased, and it made me broad awake, and I saw 
what I was doing, what he wanted me to do, clear as 
day . . . and you had saved me. Nan, though you did 
not know it. ‘ Put me down !’ I said, and when he would 
not, but drove faster, and the cart rocked to and fro in 
the ruts, I tried to throw myself out, but he gripped me 
like a vice and said, ‘ By God, Easter, if you do, I’ll 
drive over your body — dead or alive. I’ve got you, and 
I’ll keep you, too,’ and so we zigzagged on, for Rufus 
had bolted, till at last, close to the Fitzwalters station, 
something snapped with a crash, and we were both thrown 
out into the road. 

‘ ‘ When I came to myself, he was calling me by every 
mad and foolish name of love, but I would not listen, 
and then he grew angry again — and next happened the 
most wonderful, the most incredible thing — we heard 
wheels approaching, and who should it be, driving all 
alone, but Daddy ! I saw his face clearly by the lamps, 
and when he saw the smashed dog-cart and Basil, and 
asked what was the matter, Basil flew at him, and in the 
midst of their quarrelling, I jumped into the cart, seized 


A MAN OF TODAY. 


28s 


you — how he brought me here — how he hid me — of 
the brick he has been to me — but there isn’t time 
now . . 

Jem came in at that moment, leading Hugon. There 
were marks of tears upon her face, which was yet peace- 
ful, as one over which the last storm has passed — now 
comes rest. She stooped down to kiss Easter, and Jem, 
looking earnestly at her, and in a way that she under- 
stood, laid his young son gently in her arms. 


286 


A MAN- OF TO^DAY. 


CHAPTER XLV. 

** It is well worth while to learn how to win the heart of a man the 
right way. Force is of no use to make or preserve a friend, who is 
an animal never caught and tamed but by kindness and pleasure.” 

Daddy’s subsequent relation of the events that oc- 
curred on a certain remarkable night in spring took place 
in the usual rendezvous, the wood-house, and was so in- 
teresting as to make both him and Nan forget the cold, 
though their blue noses — the more especially Daddy’s, 
which was always a splendid advertising medium — attested 
to the severity of the weather without doors, for all the 
summer satisfaction that might reign their hearts within. 

Daddy indeed had been somewhat exercised in his 
mind how to Bowdlerise his version of things so as to 
meet the requirements of this child who apprehended 
every variety of good so easily (even finding it when it 
did not exist), but had so very little practical knowledge 
of evil in any of its branches. He finally compounded 
the matter by those pungent little asides to himself duly 
set down below, while his communications to her were as 
strictly orthodox as his vocabulary and liberal turn of 
thought allowed. 

“Well,” he said, “I had been out to supper, you 
know, and I was driving home (awfully sprung), when I 
found myself going slap into a sort of picnic in a lane — at 
least there was the Muscovite walking delicately about 
like Agag among the ruins of a trap, Rufus munching 
grass in a ditch, and Easter — well, I didn’t see her as I 
pulled up, and enquired politely what he was doing there 
— (‘ What the devil are you up to now f I said), and he 
replied with equal politeness (he told me to go to hell), that 
that was his business. I’d always been a sort of buffer 
between him and Easter, and he loved me properly for it 
— you bet — and then I got a turn, for Easter hopped out 
of the hedge, like an india-rubber ball, climbed into the 
trap, and snatching the reins out of my hands — awful bad 
form that — quite inexcusable — started off the Boss at ex- 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


287 


press speed, and before Strokoff could stop her. He’d 
have pulled her out of the cart if she hadn’t been quicker 
than greased lightning, for the lamp light flashed on his 
face, and of all the demons I ever saw — like a burglar 
when his pal makes ofl" with the swag — and we always 
thought him such a well-bred chap too ! When we’d 
gone a bit of a way, and I’d got my breath back, 
‘Daddy,’ she said, ‘it isn’t every wicked girl who’s got 
one guardian angel to watch over her — and I’ve got two 
—you and Nan !’ I thought this pretty good for a beast 
like me — (but she’d frightened me sober) — and her face 
was white as chalk when she turned it round on me. And 
though she had often been angry with me before, I knew 
she wasn’t now. 

“ ‘ Daddy,’ she said, ‘you warned me only a few days 
ago — and I was very rude to you — all the same you made 
me promise if ever I were in trouble I’d come to you — 
and you’d help me — well, I want you to redeem that 
promise now. Only first you must swear me an oath that 
you will do just what I want — and that you will never tell 
a living soul what that is, till I give you leave.’ Well, 
you know. Nan, it was rather a large order, and I hesi- 
tated a bit, and she blazed out at me like a million Gatling 
guns all going at once, ‘and I was mistaken in you,’ she 
said, all of a sputter, like girls in a rage. ‘ Stop the cart 
— Fm going to get out.’ ‘ And Fm going to drive you 
home,’ I said, feeling riled, ‘and I won’t go,’ she flashed 
out, ‘not to Penroses, nor to the Hangingshaw — I’m not 
fit to go to either — I’ll kill myself first.’ (‘Jerusalem !’ 
I thought, ‘it’s too late for anyone to do anything now’), 
but when we came to the cross roads, she sent the Boss 
flying along the road to Minsterton, and as if she meant 
lit too. 

“ ‘ Are you coming home with me ?’ I said, fairly taken 
apack. It’s awkward when a beautiful young woman 
drops into tea with you at two o’clock in the morning, 
a<ad in the bosom of your family too. 

“ ‘Daddy,’ she said, looking up in my face, and you 
know what Easter’s coaxing ways can be when she likes, 

‘ are you going to swear that oath to me, or are you not ? 
Of course you can go back upon your word if you like — 
but if you don’t, things may come right yet.’ ” Daddy 


288 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


paused to whistle. ‘ ‘ Well — Nan, it was a desperate young 
voice, and a desperate young face, and I swore what she 
wanted, and a devil of a time I’ve had of it since, but 
when you’re as fond of her as I am — ” he gulped down 
something hard, and went on with his story. 

“ ‘ Very well then,’ she said, quite pleased when she’d 
made a big fool of me — excuse me. Nan, but if I hadn’t 
been one I shouldn’t have done it — you’d never catch an 
old married man on the hop like that — ‘ and now you’ve 
got to hide me away somewhere that Jem, and father, 
and everybody can’t find me — I’ve got plenty of money 
in my pocket, poor Jem’s money, you know.’ 

“ ‘ It’s all rubbish,’ I said, knowing what a fearful blun- 
der she was making, and hating to aid and abet it, 
‘probably no one even knows you’ve left Penroses — and 
you can easily slip in’ — and then I thought of Rufus, and 
the bits of the dog-cart — (and women always leave a 
letter behind to explain the unexplainable), and saw 
things might be awkward, and I stuck fast. 

“ ‘ I won’ t go back, ’ said Easter, setting her little teeth 
like a spring, and she stopped the Boss in the middle of 
the road to argue it out, and we were no nearer at the 
end of half an hour at coming to a decision than when 
we began. She seemed possessed by a horror of herself 
(as something vile — and this upset me — she knew so 
much more what she had been up to than I did) she 
could not, would not, go back to either house, ‘ and if 
you attempt to carry me there — ’ she said, ‘ I’ll kill my- 
self,’ which you’ll admit was mean, and playing it rather 
low down on her guardian angel and calculated to make 
him wish he’d stayed up top. I didn’t know, of course, 
how far — ” here Daddy coughed and interrupted himself, 
feeling that asides were dangerous indulgences, “ but any- 
way the only thing that came into my head at last was t^o 
take her home to Minsterton, for the present at a.ll 
events,” and Daddy pulled up his collar, “for Mother’s 
one of the good old-fashioned sort that respects a man\ 
and always does what I tell her. And we’re awfull>^ 
quiet, you know (at least Mother is), and if a place lie« 
ofi the market road, it may as well be a hundred miles 
from civilization — no one bothers about it — and our ser- 
vants are old ones — and had never seen Easter — they 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


2S9 

wouldn’t peach, still I had the jim-jams pretty bad when 
we drove up to the door, and thought of the hue and cry 
after her, and what lies I should have to tell — though if I’d 
known what it would cost me to tell them to you, Nan, I’d 
have seen my oath further first. Well, only Mother was 
up, and I just asked her to make Easter comfortable, 
then took the dog-cart round, and what the women said 
to each other I don’t know — only Mother took it all 
right, and seemed to understand, as I’m jiggered if I 
could, and next morning never attempted to make Easter 
go home and do her duty — said she was ill — O ! there 
are women’s reasons for everything — and Easter just be- 
witched her as she does everybody else, and Hannah and 
Martha were her slaves too — and horses wouldn’t have 
drawn a word out of any one of them. Mother soon 
found out the rights of evei^thing, and had her own 
reasons for not thinking it wise to force Easter back to 
Jem, feeling as Easter did about it, that she couldn’t ask 
him to forgive her till — till the little beggar came — O ! 
Lord ! she wanted me to hold him the other day,” and 
he squirmed all over at the thought — “just to see how 
heavy it was ! But it cut me up to see you all going 
about two double with grief for what hadn’t happened, 
and that a word from me could have put right, and I was 
like the parrot when the monkey picked off all his 
feathers — I had a hell of a time.” 

“ But she suffered, too, poor Easter,” said Nan, wist- 
fully. “ It’s a different face now altogether.” 

“Yes,” said Daddy, looking away, “she suffered, and 
no mistake — ^and it was Jem — always Jem, when it wasn’t 
those at home. I believe she had been in love with him 
the whole time she thought herself in love with Basil, and 
so, what with thinking of him, and sneaking over with 
me after dark to Penroses, and making the little beggar’s 
clothes, and pottering about the garden (she actually 
tried to learn gardening to please the Chief), she got 
through the time somehow, and Hugon helped her a lot. 
Hugon was so fond of Jem, too, you know,” added 
Daddy, with a queer look in his eyes. 

“ Did she come to you when she left Penroses?” said 
Nan, a look of sorrow crossing her bright face. 

“No — not till June. She gave me a turn, I can tell 
N / 25 


290 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


you, when she walked in and asked for Easter. That 
brute Strokoff had told her he left Easter with me, when 
she ran him to earth at last, so she came here direct. ’ ’ 

“Poor Basil,” said Nan, softly. “If Easter has re- 
pented bitterly, so has he. He is very reckless, and he 
was angry with her, and all the worst in him came out.” 
(“I should rather think it did !” murmured Daddy in one 
of his asides.) “ But I’m sure he is mjy Basil again, long 
before this.” 

“Well,” said Daddy, with considerable displeasure, 

‘ * I didn’ t know before that Penroses was exactly a hatch- 
ing ground for saints. To upset the whole apple-cart, 
as the Muscovite did (a beast I call him), and then to be 
pitied /’ ’ 

“ O ! we are all wicked sometimes,” said Nan, sadly, 

‘ ‘ and I should think a person without any faults would be 
perfectly ghastly to live with ! Just think how he would 
be able to disimprove every occasion, and preach at you ! 
The only really nice good people I ever knew are old — 
without enough go in them to be wicked — or have a real 
bust-up. But if you turned over the back pages in their 
lives, you’d find they' d done some wrong things, too, 
in their youth 1 And I can’t be angry with anybody. 
Daddy, I’m too happy. There’s father — he looks ten 
years younger already. He hated so to think Basil a 
scoundrel ’ ’ 

“Which he is,” interpolated Daddy, viciously. 

“And poor mother has actually looked out a pink 
bonnet. She’s been wearing bottle-green ones all the 
summer !” 

“But Mr. Denison’ 11 never forgive us,” said Daddy, 
with conviction, ‘ ‘ not any single one of the blooming 
lot of us — Quixotic asses — Colney Hatchites — treacher- 
ous toads, he calls us, beginning with Easter, and in- 
cluding the family doctor, who knows all your constitu- 
tions, and knew where Easter was, too — the poor old 
fellow has been trembling for his skin all round, ha ! ha ! — 
and ending with your humble servant — more especially 
your humble servant — and the Chief didn’t exactly illumi- 
nate his conversation with texts, when he came over to 
Minsterton. Even the Mater came in for some of it, but he 
didn’t get much change out of her, for I heard it all, and 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


2QI 


patted her on the back afterwards for the way she spoke 

up. 

Mr. Denison,’ she said, in her quiet way, ‘ to have 
forced your daughter home would have ruined her ulti- 
mate happiness — ^and her character. Mr. Burghersh 
would have forgiven her, and her fault — ^and it was a very 
grave one — would speedily have been forgotten by her ; 
she might even have hankered after that man again. 
And she wanted discipline. I never saw any one who 
wanted it worse’ (this made the Chief sit up with a ven- 
geance), ‘ and those long months of suffering and repent- 
ance were absolutely necessary to effect a lasting change 
in her. The noble example of faith and endurance that 
her husband set her, and which won her deepest regard, 
would never have been afforded had she returned to him 
immediately after her mad caprice had stopped just short 
of actual wrong-doing, and his happiness would have 
been ruined in the end also.’ Bully for Mater !” 

“But father has had a dreadful time,’’ said Nan, who 
positively exhaled happiness on the frosty air, “and he’s 
so good to me now, again. He knows I always stood 
up for Easter, and what do you think he called me this 
morning ? — his — his ‘ clever little girl !’ And he always 
loved Basil to the very bottom of his man’s heart — and 
girls may love more^ but I think men love longest. Daddy, 
and in a tougher sort of way — don’t you?’’ 

Daddy nodded. If his love had not been pretty tough, 
it certainly never would have stood the strain his idol put 
upon it. 

“ And I admire Jem’s pluck in taking his wife and the 
kid back to the Shaw,” continued Daddy, who had taken 
up the chopper and was whittling idly at the battered 
old block, that in some grotesque way suggested an ill- 
used but smiling countenance that seemed to share in 
the general satisfaction. “He won’t even take the 
trouble to explain that she’s been at Minsterton every 
day of the time since she left Penroses, and he’s quite 
right, explanations are odorous — and Jem wisely avoid.^ 
’em. Neither he nor Easter ever cared a hang for 
the county — though that will be all right enough when 
it reads a tit-bit in its to-day’s Times and he threw 
down the chopper to fish a newspaper out of his breast 


292 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


pocket, nodding meaningly as he held it high out of 
Nan’s reach. “Softly,” he said, with an expression of 
great content, “newspapers aren’t fit readings for little 
girls, you know — but nobody can say that Easter was 
with Strokoflf after this"' — and he rapped a particular 
column smartly — “because he went straight from Pen- 
roses to Town and thence to Paris, and the rest of it, and 
his travelling companion happened to have a husband, 
you know — I mean,” said Daddy, floundering, “that 
the husband had the bad taste to make a row, and, in 
fact, he divorced the lady, and here are all the dates and 
everything, and a decree nisi — covers an awful lot that 
little word nisiy Nan ! And nobody can say anything 
worse of Easter than that she took a drive at an unusual 
hour with me — mCy if you please, over to see mother — 
and liked Minsterton, and mother, and me, so much, she 
chose to stop there for a whole six months, having got 
tired of the Shaw, the air not exactly suiting her, and I 
shouldn’t wonder if / come out as tne Don Juan of the 
occasion, O ! Lord 

“Yes, but there’s the smudge, Daddy,” said Nan, 
pitifully. “It’s like some of mine that won’t rub out, 
however hard I try !’ ’ 

“Stuff!” said Daddy, robustly, “the world finds it 
morally impossible to quarrel with twenty thousand a 
year, and the less you want f/, the more it wants you. 
The whole thing will be forgotten in three months — and 
if Easter will only take the trouble to feed the brutes, 
they’ll fawn upon her I” 

Nan drew a long breath, and sat for a time very quiet, 
with thinking eyes, and her thin hands folded in her 
lap. 

“ Daddy,” she said at last, very earnestly, and looking 
at his long Don Quixote-like countenance with eyes that 
blessed and caressed it, “it’s you— just you who have 
brought it out all right for Easter — who have been a brick 
to her from first to last — ^who have made us all happy, 
and made the sun shine for us again, and I want to tell 
you. Daddy, that from the very bottom of my soul, I re- 
spect and love you 1” 

“ Well, I’m blowed •” said Dinkie’s outraged voice 
behind them, and Nan turned to behold her censor, who 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


293 


had secretly felt her defection very keenly, and greatly 
missed not only her company, but also having no one to 
lecture and improve. “ I wouldn’t give myself away like 
that if I were you,” and, ignoring Daddy, he ostenta- 
tiously pretended to be looking for something hidden in 
a remote corner. 

‘‘ No, you wouldn’t, I daresay,” said Nan, with sur- 
prising tartness ; “it isn’t everybody who can afford to 
give himself away — there’ d be nothing left — Fve always 
got a large piece of myself left over, to do what I like 
with !” 

Dinkie whistled. Nan was getting her head up again 
with a vengeance, and for once he felt powerless to crush 
her, but Daddy laughed as he picked up his long limbs 
and made for the door. He applauded that instinct in 
Nan, bred by injustice, which bears a great deal, but at 
last rises and calmly suppresses the oppressor. 

‘ ‘ Good-bye, Nan, ’ ’ he said, ‘ ‘ and thank you for say- 
ing you love me — it makes me proud. And you won’t 
want me so often now, you know,” and he glanced round 
with an odd feeling of affection at the homely walls, as if 
they represented a part of his life. “Dear old hut,” he 
said; “you’ve put in some bad hours here. Nan, but 
you’ll have lots of good ones yet. I shall come and 
look you up sometimes,” and he nodded to her, and 
passed out. 

Nan’s face shadowed. Daddy had been a real com- 
fort to her before she knew he had done anything for 
Easter, but now a sense of actual desolation overcame 
her, and turning up the skirt of her gown, she wept unre- 
strainedly behind it. 

Dinkie’ s face twitched, and he made a half movement 
towards her, for at the bottom of his soul he was ashamed 
of his selfish behaviour about Easter, and secretly envied 
Nan, who had taken the right ground all through in the 
matter — as, in spite of her faults, he was beginning to see 
she nearly always did — in fact, in most things she was 
nearly as good as a man. 

“There, don’t cry,” he said, roughly, “all’s well that 
ends well, you know. Easter’s all right, and it’s precious 
little besides her and your dear Daddy you care for nowa- 
days I might be dead for all you'd care.” 

25 * 


294 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


Nan stopped crying gradually, and dried her eyes with 
a frayed piece of alpaca lining. 

It was something for Dinkie even to notice her, for she 
would cheerfully endure his revilings rather than his 
silence any day, and a feeling of warmth stole through 
her heart. 

“ Daddy is kind to me,” she said, and her tears rose 
again. 

Dinkie looked sharply at her small face — much smaller 
and wanner surely than it used to be when he and she 
bickered amicably week in and week out together, then 
crossed over and gave her a rough hug. 

“You know. Nan,” he said, half sheepishly, “that 
you like me best. Friends, eh?” 

He produced two large Marie Louise pears, and gave 
her one. They sat down side by side on the faggots of 
wood to eat them, and peace, profound and all-embracing, 
reigned in Nan’s soul. Yet the child had taken her first 
long step out of childhood and towards the self- assertive- 
ness of the grown human ; the boy, his first painful one 
towards self-suppression, as they silently munched their 
fruit in the cold together. 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


295 


CHAPTER XLVI. 

** Fresh perils past, fresh sins forgiven, 

New thoughts of God, new hopes of Heaven.’* 

Hugon never gave to any living soul an account of 
her interview with Basil Strokofif when, having easily 
tracked him by the aid of a detective and the clue of his 
own remarkable personality, she came up with him in St. 
Petersburgh. 

It was characteristic of him to go where, at any 
moment, he might be conducted across the frontier, but 
he looked unconcerned and fresh as ever, with a vol- 
ume of Pouschkine in his hand, when Hugon, travel- 
stained and disordered, feeling as though endless gates 
clashing behind her had conducted her to a prison, 
whence all escape was cut oft*, suddenly appeared before 
him. 

“Where is Easter?’^ she said, glancing round the 
room, costly with exotics as are the dwellings of princes 
in that land of strangest and most violent contrasts. 

“At the Shaw, I imagine,” he said, looking at her 
with surprise ; then struck by her expression, he added — 
‘ ‘ where else should she be ?’ ’ 

Hugon crossed the salon, and opened the door into the 
third room forming his suite ; but, nest of luxury as the 
apartment was, she saw no sign of woman’s occupation 
in it, and she came back to him, trembling. 

“What have you done with her?” she said. “You 
know that she is not at the Shaw. O ! my God ! have 
you deserted her already?” 

“I left her with Daddy Gardner,” he said, his brow 
darkening at a recollection, for to receive two such checks 
as he had done, from so insignificant a person, infuriated 
him even to think of. 

“And the woman you brought away with you,” stam- 
mered Hugon, too stunned to take in the full significance 
of what he said — “for it was not Mrs. Hoyos !” 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


296 

Basil smiled slowly, and the smile was a revelation to 
her. 

“Do you think there are only two women in a man’s 
life?” he said. “And a man likes what he can geC^ 

“Who was she? — where is she?” cried Hugon, not 
daring to grasp all at once the great and glorious revela- 
tion that meant — what did it not mean to Jem?” 

“I sent her home yesterday,’’ said Basil, languidly, 
and half closing his eyes as if to shut out a recollection 
of something that bored him. “ Russia did not suit her 
constitution. Let me order some coffee for you,’’ and he 
touched a bell. 

“ But — but,’’ said Hugon, still, as it were, trickling her 
joy through her heart, lest she drowned in it, “you left 
Town for abroad a few hours after you arrived, and with 
a lady.’’ 

* ‘ Coffee, ’ ’ said Basil to the man who bowed before 
him. ‘ ‘ It was very simple, ’ ’ he said, when the door had 
closed, “I arrived at 7 A.M., bathed, breakfasted, sent 
my man round to a lady of my acquaintance with a note, 
telling him not to wait as there was no answer, caught the 
early train to Dover from Victoria — ^the lady was waiting 
for me at the latter place — ^and since then have been trav- 
elling. I did not see the necessity of writing home, the 
more especially as my father would object to my presence 
in Russia, where I have business. But why this chase ? 
The virtuous Mrs. Burghersh is no doubt now quite happy 
in the arms of her Jem.'^ He said the word savagely, 
and ground his heel into the rug at his feet. ‘ ‘ So much 
impression I had made on her as that — Jem was scratched 
deep into her heart, and she did not know it. Well, I 
meant to read her a lesson, and I took her away more 
from pique and rage than anything else — it was nearer 
revenge — for she had made a fool of me. I could have 
sworn she loved me — and all the while she kept control 
over herself, while I had none, and when she got away 
from me that night — it was her prattling of Jem did it — I 
swore a black oath that if she ever fell into my hands 
again, I would take her and break her, even if I sent her 
back the next day, I would break her, and punish her, 
for the way she had fooled me. And she played into my 
hands by trying to run away from me in the night. From 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


297 


something she let fall I guessed she meant to do it — I was 
in the garden and I followed, and caught her, and she 
might have come, though I believe she would have killed 
herself and me too first, but Nan ” he stopped ab- 

ruptly, and a scarlet flush swept up to his brow, “dear 
Nan, brave Nan, who believed in me though I told her 
what I was, and am, tried to save us both, and I thrust 
her away — God forgive me, it was a cowardly blow !” 

He turned aside, and while his back was turned to her, 
the coffee was brought in and set before her. 

“I always kept my bad manners for Penroses,*’ he 
said, more quietly, presently. ‘ ‘ Hound that I was, I be- 
haved like a savage to her, but she never loved me, there 
was much pride and some feminine jealousy, too, in the 
matter, and she was not the woman to make me love her 
as I could love — and passion may grow out of love, but 
never love out of passion. And it was because I felt that 
I had behaved like a scoundrel and come with no good 
intentions to Penroses that when I heard of Mr. Deni- 
son’s trouble, I assisted him — and so to some extent 
righted myself with my conscience. And but for you,’’ 
he added, sternly, “you who threw us continually to- 
gether — ^who moved heaven and earth to bring us into 
one another’s arms — even produced those old letters of 
mine at a critical moment — damn them !’’ he interpo- 
lated, heartily, ‘ ‘ I wish my hand had rotted before it 
wrote them, I should have done Easter no harm. I 
don’t know what your game was — possibly to console 
Jem (his bitter accent showed that the wound to his 
vanity still bled), but, however you put it, you behaved 
about as badly and treacherously as a woman can to the 
people who had benefited you.” 

Hugon seemed to shrivel as she stood before her 
haughty accuser. 

“It’s all true,” she said, with difficulty, “but I’ve re- 
pented . . . I’m trying to put it all right again now . . . 
ov\y where is Easter? Not at Penroses or the Hang- 
ingshaw ; no one has heard of her since you took her 
away that night.” 

Basil started, and became very grave. 

“What tricks has Gardner been up to ?” he said; “ it 
strikes me that young gentleman is rather wasting his 


298 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


talents for intrigue in the country. He drove off with 
her — or she with him — and that was the last I saw of 
her. Good God !” he cried, as one struck by a frightful 
thought, ‘ ‘ do they think she is with me — do Denison and 
Nan think thatf^ 

‘ ‘ How could they think any other ? Have you not 
heard from your mother — it is with her money I have 
tracked you — from Mrs. Hoyos?” 

Basil shook his head. He was very pale now, and his 
blue eyes looked black with suppressed emotion. 

“ Tell me,” he said, briefly, and she told him. 

“That Denison should believe me to be such a sweep,” 
he cried, forgetting what endeavours he had made to be 
one (it is always the sins that we have tried our hardest 
to commit, and been saved from, that we most resent 
being accused of). “That cuts the most of all — and 
with those business relations between us — ^why, he must 
have felt he’d sold her — and as to that Gardner” (he 
swore deep in his heart), “he ought to be boiled for 
muddling things so. It won’t bear thinking about. I’ll 
start for England at once, ’ ’ and he tore at the bell, and 
desired Sanders to be sent to him immediately. 

The man came, as unruffled as when he had put Lala 
Hoyos on a false scent before leaving Town to rejoin his 
master, but when passports had been obtained, and every- 
thing was prepared for the journey, Basil suddenly de- 
cided to remain where he was. 

Jem Burghersh was the proper person to search for his 
wife ; Basil could do little good, but considerable harm, 
by appearing in the neighbourhood, but this he could 
and did do — write a letter to Tom Denison clearing him- 
self entirely of the odium that clung about his name. 
This letter, together with a shorter one to Nan, Hugon 
took back to England with her, but, for reasons long ago 
mentioned, they never reached the hands for which they 
were intended, till Easter’s child was born, and all the 
truth made known. 

*********:}: 

Take one last journey with me before we part . . . step 
aside to where in a sunny corner of the little old world 
churchyard into which Minsterton looks. Nan is tending 
the flowers she planted beside a grave at whose head is a 


A MAN OF TO-DAY, 


299 


slab of pure white marble, and upon which is cut in scarlet 
letters, the name — 

HUGON. 

Immediately below it is written “God be merciful to 
me, a Sinner.” 

Hither, too, come Mrs. Gardner, and Daddy, even 
sometimes Dinkie, and there is innocent jest, and gentle 
fun and frolic, all that Nan thinks as suitable to death as 
life, above this woman who would have loved to know 
herself not forgotten, and hither, too, come Jem and 
beautiful Easter, with their little son, who makes careful 
patterns of flowers, and prattles above the heart of the 
woman who loved his father truly, sinfully, but purely 
well at last. 

It is here that Basil finds Nan the girl when he comes 
to ask her forgivenness, here that they talk hand in hand 
together, lovingly as in former days, and hence that lin- 
geringly he passes out of her life for ever, her Basil, and 
so leaves her comforted, not knowing that on this earth 
their faces will never quicken for joy at sight of each other 
again, nor find in them a beauty that no others see, but 
the man takes away with him the one good, abiding 
woman-influence that he has ever known in his life — and 
the last. 

For woman was nothing to Basil now — she had been 
swept away like tow by sterner thoughts, and the fierce 
breath of patriotism, and Prince Strokoff saw, without 
blenching for his only son, the approach of those perilous 
years of struggle that might guide him to the darkness 
of a Siberian mine, or on the other hand throne him high 
among that brilliant list of martyrs over whose lives their 
country has advanced yet a few more blood-stained steps 
to freedom. 

vl# *4^ 

And as time went on, and Basil did not take his place 
with other marionettes on that ceaseless wheel of what 
they were pleased to call pleasure, Lala’s smile grew rarer, 
and the small, pale face narrower and colder, while that 
infallible sign of corruption in a woman — the coarsening 
of her voice — began to betray her. She came to realise 


300 


A MAN OF TO-DAY. 


that love is the pivot upon which the merry-go-round of 
life turns, and when that pivot is worn out, or broken, the 
jocund figures fall lifeless from their seats ; there is no 
soul, or heart, or joyousness in the show — yea, the very 
music is dumb, and the dancing feet are stilled, when love 
himself is dead, or, having gone out, hath forgotten to 
return. 


THE END, 


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